Australia’s Social Media Ban for Children Takes Effect

Hundreds of thousands of teenagers in Australia awoke Wednesday to find their social media accounts logged out or deactivated, under a new law that bars anyone younger than 16 from the services.
The day marked the launch of a sweeping governmental effort to shelter children from the potential harms associated with such platforms, putting the country at the vanguard of regulating social media services that parents and educators worry have ensnared a generation of young people.
But the day was also a reminder that the task of weaning teenagers off social media would be a challenging one.
Luca Hagop, 15, who spends a lot of time on social media and who spoke earlier to The Times about the ban, returned from a school camp Wednesday afternoon to find his Snapchat and Facebook accounts were not working, but that he could use Instagram and YouTube just fine.
He shrugged it off, because he only cared about the latter two, his father, Adrian Hagop, said.
The measure, passed a year ago requires the technology companies behind the platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube — to identify and disable the accounts of Australian users who are under 16. Under the law, failure to take “reasonable steps” to remove underage users could lead to fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (about $33 million).