Australia's government is moving to strengthen enforcement of its social media ban for children under 16, acknowledging that the landmark legislation passed in the first year has largely failed to protect young people from platforms designed to maximize their engagement.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced Thursday that the government would pursue digital duty of care legislation to hold social media platforms accountable for the harms their content and algorithms cause to children. The move comes as evidence mounts that the ban—which came into force on Dec. 10 last year—has not achieved its core objective of keeping minors off Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube.
The Scale of the Problem
Data released by Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant in March revealed that seven in 10 underage children continued to hold accounts on restricted platforms despite the ban. A study published in the British Medical Journal on Wednesday found an even starker picture: 85% of a group of Australian 12 to 17-year-olds were using platforms they were legally barred from accessing.
Melbourne's RMIT University expert on information sciences Lisa Given characterized the ban as failing. "Many kids in the media have reported that they also think that this is really a failed exercise," Given said, pointing to the gap between legislative intent and enforcement reality.
Albanese said the government was examining whether the eSafety Commissioner had every power at her disposal to enforce the restrictions, and whether existing laws were as strong as possible. The acknowledgment reflects a fundamental challenge: regulation without adequate enforcement mechanisms cannot protect vulnerable populations from corporate resistance.
Enforcement Challenges and Regulatory Power
Inman Grant said in April she was considering court action against Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube, alleging they were not taking reasonable steps to remove underage accounts. These platforms, along with X, Kick, Reddit, Threads, and Twitch, face potential fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($34 million) for failing to comply.
Yet the eSafety Commissioner herself has indicated the limits of her current authority. In an interview reported by the Sydney Morning Herald in early June, Inman Grant stated: "I don't have potent powers." She added: "What I would say is a regulator is only as good as the tools and the resources that they are given."
Given underscored this structural problem: "Either the eSafety Commissioner needs more powers or we've got to have some other approach to enforcement." She noted that Inman Grant faced a challenge in enforcing legislation that platforms were actively resisting, and that courts would ultimately need to determine what constituted "reasonable steps" under the law.
Global Response to Platform Harms
Australia was the first country in the world to pass legislation keeping youth off social media, but the enforcement struggles have not deterred other democracies from pursuing similar protections. Britain announced last week plans to ban children under 16 from a range of platforms to protect them from harmful content and excessive screen time. Canada, Brazil, and Indonesia have introduced legislation or announced age-based restrictions, while France, Spain, Denmark, Thailand, and South Korea are among others studying or developing comparable approaches.
The proposed digital duty of care legislation represents a shift from relying solely on age restrictions to holding platforms responsible for foreseeable harms. This framework acknowledges that protecting children requires not just rules about who can access platforms, but enforceable obligations on the companies that profit from their engagement.
Why This Matters:
The gap between Australia's ban and its enforcement reveals a critical vulnerability in democratic regulation of powerful technology companies. When platforms can circumvent restrictions designed to protect children—and when regulators lack the tools to compel compliance—the burden falls on young people and families to navigate digital environments engineered for addiction and engagement. The proposed duty of care legislation attempts to shift accountability from individual users to the institutions responsible for algorithmic design and content curation. As other democracies consider similar bans, Australia's experience demonstrates that age restrictions alone are insufficient without adequate regulatory power, funding, and enforcement mechanisms. The question of whether governments can effectively hold platforms accountable for harms to minors remains central to protecting children's rights and wellbeing in digital spaces.