Australia to track teen 'migratory patterns' as social media ban takes effect

Australia will become the first country to ban social media accounts for users under 16 starting 10 December, with regulators tracking “migratory patterns” to stop teens shifting to other platforms, Communications Minister Anika Wells said on Wednesday (3 December).

The ban is designed to tackle what Wells described as “behavioural cocaine” — addictive design features targeting young users — and shifts responsibility for underage use onto tech companies.

Australia’s eSafety Commission will begin compliance checks on 11 December, sending notices to 10 major platforms requesting data on underage accounts both before and after the ban.

Wells emphasised the law will be monitored through an evidence-based review over two years, noting it is not “set and forget.”

She criticised platforms like YouTube for always being “at pains to remind us all how unsafe their platform is in a logged-out state.”

“Viewers must now be 16 or older to sign in to YouTube. This law will not achieve its goal of making children safer online and will, in fact, make Australian kids less safe on YouTube,” the platform said in a statement earlier, on Wednesday (3 December), complying with the new law.

"Teenage addiction was not a bug, it was a design feature,” Wells said, acknowledging teens may experience short-term discomfort losing access to accounts.

“But I truly believe the long-term benefits will outweigh the withdrawal symptoms,” she concluded. 

The law bars users under 16 from maintaining social media accounts and carries penalties of up to A$49.5 million (£25.5 million) for breaches.

Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat have all pledged to comply, while Elon Musk’s X and Reddit have yet to make public commitments.

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Australia’s eSafety Commission reports that YouTube has about 325,000 accounts for users aged 13 to 15, compared with Snapchat’s 440,000 and Instagram’s 350,000.

The watchdog also found that over a third of Australians aged 10 to 15 have come across harmful content on YouTube, the highest rate among major platforms.

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