Three Months Into Australia’s Under-16 Social Media Ban, 81% Still Used the Platforms
Australia’s first longitudinal check after its under-16 social media restrictions found fewer children owning accounts, but only a modest decline in actual platform use. The result exposes weak early age checks, yet it is a three-month snapshot, not a verdict on the policy’s long-term success.
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Australia’s attempt to keep children under 16 from holding social media accounts has produced a measurable change, but not the clean break its shorthand description as a “ban” might suggest. Three months after the rules took effect, account ownership fell, while 81.5% of surveyed children still reported using at least one restricted platform.
The 30-second summary
- What happened? Australia’s eSafety Commissioner published the first follow-up from a two-year evaluation of its under-16 social media account restrictions.
- Why does it matter? Account ownership dropped from 52.4% to 42.1%, but use of restricted platforms declined only from 85.9% to 81.5%.
- What is the catch? The follow-up covers roughly 1,000 families only three months after implementation, so it cannot determine long-term effectiveness or prove that any platform broke the law.
KEY NUMBER
81.5% of children aged 10 to 15 in the matched survey sample had used at least one age-restricted platform during the previous four weeks.
The policy changed accounts more than behaviour
The restrictions took effect on 10 December 2025. They require covered platforms to take reasonable steps to stop Australians under 16 from creating or keeping accounts. Children and parents are not fined for having an account, a distinction explained in eSafety’s official guidance on the law.
The three-month evaluation report compared responses collected before implementation with follow-up surveys conducted from March to April 2026. Its clearest result is a gap between possessing an account and accessing a service. Ownership of at least one restricted-platform account fell by 10.3 percentage points, while reported use fell by only 4.4 points.
That difference is not necessarily a contradiction. YouTube and several other services can be viewed without signing in, and children may also use accounts belonging to relatives or friends. NewTqnia’s reading is that account removal is a useful compliance measure, but it is not the same outcome as reducing exposure, time spent or harm.
Age checks were often missing or ineffective
Among children who still held a restricted account, 50.2% said the platform had not asked them to confirm their age. Another 18.2% said the system estimated their age incorrectly, while 37.1% reported that the age listed on an account was 16 or older. These answers could overlap because respondents could select multiple explanations.
The report describes these as early implementation signals, not court findings. The regulator is separately examining compliance by major services, and its 31 July policy update stresses that the evaluation does not decide whether an individual company breached its obligations.
This matters beyond Australia. Governments considering age limits must decide how much certainty to demand from age assurance, the collection of techniques used to estimate or verify a user’s age. Stronger checks may block more children, but can also create privacy, accessibility and mistaken-classification risks.
One unexpected signal concerns parents
Parental awareness moved in the wrong direction. Among parents whose children reported using social media, the share who were unaware of that use rose from 23.3% before implementation to 33.3% three months later. The increase was particularly noticeable among parents of children aged 10 to 12.
The study cannot establish why this happened. Children may have shifted to less visible access methods, parents may have assumed the restriction had solved the problem, or normal survey variation and early adjustment may explain part of the change. Still, it is a warning that a legal limit can unintentionally reduce family oversight if adults treat platform enforcement as a substitute for conversation.
Before we overstate the result
- The headline figure comes from 803 children aged 10 to 15 with comparable survey data, within a follow-up of about 1,000 families drawn from a baseline of more than 4,000.
- Data were self-reported, although the wider two-year project will also use interviews, administrative information and passive smartphone tracking.
- The comparison was made only three months after implementation, when platforms and families were still adapting.
- The report measures accounts, reported use and early experiences. It does not yet establish effects on mental health, safety, learning or long-term behaviour.
What happens next
The regulator plans further waves at six, 12 and 24 months. Those later measurements should show whether early account closures persist, whether use shifts to other platforms or messaging services, and whether stronger age checks change the balance between access and privacy.
For now, the evidence supports a narrower conclusion than either supporters or critics may want. Australia’s rules reduced under-16 account ownership, but most children in the sample continued to use restricted services. The first test of the policy is therefore not complete, it has revealed where the real test begins.
Sources include the official report page and Reuters reporting published on 31 July 2026.
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Published by
NewTqnia Technology Policy Desk
An institutional editorial team within NewTqnia
