Australian Teens Circumvent Country’s Groundbreaking Under-16 Social Media Ban
Despite a world-first law blocking under-16s from major platforms, many teenagers are still accessing apps through loopholes and workarounds
On 10 December 2025, Australia’s world-first ban on social media accounts for users under the age of sixteen took effect, obliging major platforms to take ‘‘reasonable steps’’ to block young users and exposing companies that fail to comply to fines of up to fifty million Australian dollars.
The legislation, passed as the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act, covers widely used services such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Facebook and others.
It was designed to protect children from addictive algorithms, cyberbullying and harmful content by limiting their access to social platforms, a policy Australian leaders frame as advancing young people’s wellbeing and online safety.
Yet within days of the ban’s commencement, many Australian teenagers reported that little had changed in practice.
On its first day, under-sixteen users still found themselves logged in on major apps such as Snapchat and TikTok, with some accounts unaffected or only temporarily disrupted, demonstrating that enforcement remains uneven and that the law will take time to fully constrain access.
Other teens have described relying on virtual private networks and other technical workarounds to keep their connections alive while platforms calibrate age-verification systems.
In the lead-up to the ban, many minors already experimented with bypass strategies.
Some asked parents to use their credentials or age-verification tools tied to adult accounts to keep platforms from deactivating theirs, while others migrated to smaller or emerging apps not yet captured by the law.
Teenagers interviewed in suburbs of Sydney and elsewhere emphasised that they expected ‘‘everyone’s going to find a way around it easily,’’ reflecting a confidence that technical evasions will persist without further enforcement refinement.
Australians are now watching how the world’s first blanket age-based social media restriction unfolds in practice.
Governments and tech companies acknowledge that the policy’s success depends on sophisticated digital detection mechanisms and ongoing cooperation with platforms, even as other countries, from South Korea to parts of Europe, consider similar measures to protect youth online.
The Australian experiment is therefore both a legal precedent and a real-time test of the limits of regulatory power in shaping online behaviour amid rising concerns over youth mental health and digital safety.
The legislation, passed as the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act, covers widely used services such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, Facebook and others.
It was designed to protect children from addictive algorithms, cyberbullying and harmful content by limiting their access to social platforms, a policy Australian leaders frame as advancing young people’s wellbeing and online safety.
Yet within days of the ban’s commencement, many Australian teenagers reported that little had changed in practice.
On its first day, under-sixteen users still found themselves logged in on major apps such as Snapchat and TikTok, with some accounts unaffected or only temporarily disrupted, demonstrating that enforcement remains uneven and that the law will take time to fully constrain access.
Other teens have described relying on virtual private networks and other technical workarounds to keep their connections alive while platforms calibrate age-verification systems.
In the lead-up to the ban, many minors already experimented with bypass strategies.
Some asked parents to use their credentials or age-verification tools tied to adult accounts to keep platforms from deactivating theirs, while others migrated to smaller or emerging apps not yet captured by the law.
Teenagers interviewed in suburbs of Sydney and elsewhere emphasised that they expected ‘‘everyone’s going to find a way around it easily,’’ reflecting a confidence that technical evasions will persist without further enforcement refinement.
Australians are now watching how the world’s first blanket age-based social media restriction unfolds in practice.
Governments and tech companies acknowledge that the policy’s success depends on sophisticated digital detection mechanisms and ongoing cooperation with platforms, even as other countries, from South Korea to parts of Europe, consider similar measures to protect youth online.
The Australian experiment is therefore both a legal precedent and a real-time test of the limits of regulatory power in shaping online behaviour amid rising concerns over youth mental health and digital safety.
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