ALBAWABA- Australia on Wednesday became the first country to enforce a nationwide ban on social media access for users under 16, a landmark move aimed at curbing the digital harms increasingly linked to youth mental-health decline.
The law, which took effect at midnight, requires ten major platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kick, Twitch, and Threads, to block existing underage accounts and prevent new sign-ups, with multimillion-dollar penalties for noncompliance.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the measure “one of the biggest social and cultural changes our nation has faced,” saying the goal is to protect children from the dangers of unfiltered online spaces. Platforms must now adopt robust age-verification systems, using tools such as facial-age estimation, government-ID checks, or behavioral analysis, replacing what regulators call ineffective self-certification by users or parents.
Early implementation has been uneven, with some minors still able to access their accounts, prompting officials to pledge stricter monitoring and ongoing enforcement.
The ban follows mounting evidence linking social media use among adolescents to cyberbullying, exposure to harmful content, addictive scrolling patterns, and rising rates of anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders.
Mental-health advocates and parent groups point to studies tying algorithm-driven feeds, and their mix of body-image pressure, extremist content, and predatory behavior, to a 20% rise in teen suicides over the past decade.
With more than 80% of Australian teenagers using social media daily, the government’s sweeping action positions the country at the forefront of global efforts to regulate youth online safety as similar debates intensify in the United States and Europe.
