COLUMN: Australia's Social Media Ban — The Law That Did Not Deliver Its Promises

COLUMN: Australia's Social Media Ban — The Law That Did Not Deliver Its Promises

Introduction: Six Months On, Teens Are Still Online

The BMJ Study That Documents the Failure

On June 24, 2026, the British Medical Journal published a study that will sting supporters of social media bans for minors. Its authors, Australian researchers from the University of Newcastle, tracked 408 adolescents aged 12 to 17 before and after the Online Safety Amendment Act came into force in December 2025. The conclusion is unambiguous: "We did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that the law had substantial early effects on social media use by adolescents under 16."

In plain language: the law changed almost nothing. More than 85% of the affected teenagers continue using the banned platforms. Most kept their existing accounts — since platforms did not conduct systematic checks — or circumvented restrictions through fake accounts, private browsers, or a parent's account. Australia was the first country in the world to adopt such a ban. It is paying the price of being a pioneer without having solved the fundamental enforcement problems.

What Other Studies Are Saying

The BMJ study is not an outlier. A Pureprofile survey from June 2026, based on 1,025 participants (parents, teachers, and young people), concludes that 78% of under-16s still access banned platforms. The Molly Rose Foundation published similar figures in March 2026: 61% of 12-to-15-year-olds who had accounts before the law still had at least one. The Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), drawing on data from 2,000 respondents collected in March–April 2026, notes that half of affected children kept at least some of their accounts. The studies all converge on the same finding: the law did not work as intended.

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese responded to this publication on June 26, 2026 by declaring his intention to strengthen the law and "stress-test" it. A politically understandable reaction — but one that sidesteps the fundamental question: can technologically savvy teenagers actually be excluded from social media by legislation?

How Teenagers Are Getting Around the Law

The Bypass Toolkit

The circumvention methods used by Australian teenagers are staggeringly varied for lawmakers. The most common — and the most revealing of the law's failure — is simply doing nothing: most platforms did not deactivate existing minor accounts. They took "reasonable steps" as the law requires, but those steps often amount to asking users to confirm their age by clicking a button.

Among the active methods: using a parent's or older sibling's account, creating fake accounts with a falsified date of birth, using private or incognito browsers, and — in a smaller proportion than initially feared — VPNs to simulate a location outside Australia. The BMJ study notes that VPNs are not the primary bypass method, contrary to initial concerns. The determining factor is the fact that platforms themselves do not strictly enforce the law.

Age Verification: An Unsolved Technical Challenge

The Online Safety Amendment Act requires platforms to take "reasonable steps" to verify users' ages. But what does "reasonable" mean in practice? Available technologies include facial recognition, identity document scanning, verification via a bank account, and "age inference" based on online behavior. Each method has problems: facial recognition can be fooled by a photo or makeup, identity scanning threatens privacy, and behavioral inference lacks precision for individuals close to the 16-year threshold.

The Pureprofile survey reveals that only one third of affected minors underwent a facial age verification scan — and that half of those were incorrectly identified as being over 16. This is not anecdotal: it is a 50% failure rate for the technology supposedly at the heart of the legal framework. When your verification system has an error rate equivalent to a coin toss, the law is not enforceable.

The Effectiveness Debate: What the Experts Say

Mental Health: Mixed and Unexpected Results

Paradoxically, the area where results are most nuanced is the law's supposed primary goal: adolescent mental health. The FOSI survey (conducted with Ipsos in March–April 2026) reveals a surprising result: 58% of children and 62% of parents believe the ban contributed to improving youth mental health and well-being. That is markedly higher than the 33% of children and 42% of parents who predicted this before the law.

How to explain this paradox? Perhaps through a perception effect: even if teenagers still use social media, the law may have created "social permission" to disconnect more easily. Or perhaps some parents managed to reduce their children's usage even though the law was not fully enforced. What is certain is that the law, despite its enforcement failures, did not produce the catastrophic effect its opponents feared — but neither did it produce the beneficial revolution its proponents promised.

The Displacement to Other Platforms: The Hidden Risk

One well-documented effect of the law is displacement toward other platforms and digital spaces. 46% of children (and only 36% of parents — a revealing 10-point gap) report that the ban pushed them to other digital platforms. These alternatives are often less regulated, less transparent about their algorithms, and potentially more dangerous. The Western Sydney University report from April 2026 highlights another problem: the ban reduced young people's access to news. Nearly a quarter of 10-to-16-year-olds used social media as their primary access to news — blocking those platforms also cuts some young people off from information.

Experts at the Science Media Centre, responding to the BMJ study, were severe: "A simple ban is not effective. Studies, all convergent, show that simplistic measures fail the children whose safety should be the priority." The political conclusion is uncomfortable: if you cannot stop children from accessing social media, the real question is how to make those platforms safer for them — not how to exclude them from those spaces.

The Legislative Question: Can Law Solve Everything?

The Example of Similar Laws in Other Countries

Australia is no longer alone. Its model has inspired other countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Maldives have adopted similar legislation or are in the process of doing so. The European Union has its Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes obligations on platforms to protect minors without going as far as outright prohibition. The United Kingdom has its Online Safety Act. The United States is debating federal and state-level legislation.

But the first Australian reckoning — often presented as "the strictest law in the world" — should give these lawmakers pause. The failure of enforcement is not due to a lack of political will: the Australian prime minister staked his reputation on this issue. It is due to a fundamental technological reality: in a world where VPNs cost a few dollars a month, where smartphones are ubiquitous, where teenagers are digitally native, legislative barriers only hold if verification technologies hold. And they do not.

Platform Responsibility vs. Parental Responsibility

The Australian model places the burden of control on platforms — not on parents, not on children. Fines can reach 49.5 million Australian dollars for non-compliant platforms. This choice is defensible in principle — companies profiting from teenage engagement must bear responsibility. But in practice it creates a situation where platforms make formal efforts (Meta blocked more than 500,000 accounts of Australians under 16) without ever solving the underlying problem.

FOSI data shows that 57% of parents attempted to enforce the ban, but 42% found it difficult. The family reality is complex: parents cannot constantly monitor their children's smartphone use, especially when the children know how to bypass parental controls. The law may have had an indirect positive effect by legitimizing conversations between parents and children about screen time — but that is not what was expected of national legislation billed as revolutionary.

The Technological Challenge: When Bypass Tools Outpace Control Tools

VPNs, Proxies, and Tor Browsers: Teenagers' Digital Arsenal

Although the BMJ study found that VPNs are not the primary circumvention tool — their use remains marginal according to the data — cybersecurity experts point out that the distinction between "VPN" and "private browser" is blurry for most users. A browser incorporating a proxy, a Tor-type extension, or simply private browsing mode with alternative DNS settings constitutes a functional equivalent.

The UK Safer Internet Centre established that, contrary to fears expressed during the Australian legislative debate, children are not using advanced bypass technologies en masse. The main gap is more mundane: platforms simply were not rigorous about age verification, and minors took advantage. This is an enforcement failure more than a technological bypass catastrophe. Which, paradoxically, offers a more accessible path forward: force platforms to be genuinely rigorous — but using verification technologies that also protect privacy.

Addictive Design: The Real Battle

The Brookings Institution warned back in December 2025: restricting children's access to certain platforms does not necessarily reduce screen time — it pushes them toward other platforms. The problem is not TikTok or Instagram as such: it is the addictive design of algorithms that maximize engagement at the expense of well-being. Dopamine reward loops, incessant notifications, content calibrated to provoke strong emotional reactions — these mechanisms do not disappear when a platform is banned. They migrate.

This is why 75% of children and 74% of parents, according to FOSI, call for platforms with special accounts and additional protections for teenagers. This is not a call for prohibition — it is a call for different, more responsible design. The real battle is not legislative: it is in the boardrooms of Meta, ByteDance, and their competitors' product engineers.

Next Steps for Australia and the World

The Stanford Evaluation Group and Expected Results

Australia has not had its last word. In September 2025, the government commissioned an independent academic evaluation group led by Stanford University to assess the law's impact. Results are expected by the end of 2026. These data will be critical: unlike the partial studies already published, Stanford's evaluation will be national, representative, and longitudinal. It will be able to separate the law's effect from pre-existing trends.

In the meantime, the Albanese government announced it wants to "stress-test" the law. That likely means imposing stricter age verification requirements on platforms, intensifying the eSafety regulator's investigations, and potentially stiffening fines. Regulatory pressure on platforms will intensify — and that is probably where the real action lies, more than adding new legislative layers to a law already difficult to enforce.

What Other Countries Can Learn From Australia's Experience

For other countries watching the Australian experience — France, the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union — the lesson is not "prohibition does not work, so do nothing." It is more nuanced: a ban without credible verification infrastructure does not work. Regulation must target platform design as much as access. And digital education remains indispensable — because no law can replace the judgment that only education can develop. This is an educational problem as much as a technological one.

The NORC at the University of Chicago, in its longitudinal study of Australian families, will publish its comparative before-and-after ban results in June 2026. These data, the only nationally representative before-and-after data of their kind, will allow a definitive assessment. If they confirm the ineffectiveness of a purely prohibitionist approach, the entire global legislative model on minors and social media will need to be rethought. That is probably what is going to happen.

Australia Facing the World: Other Countries Trying the Same Approach

The Australian Precedent Inspires International Legislation

Despite its enforcement difficulties, the Australian law has had a global ripple effect. The United Kingdom accelerated implementation of its Online Safety Act, adopted in 2023 but whose implementing decrees were running late. France is examining a similar proposal advanced by several senators since March 2026. The United States — where more than 40 states have attempted comparable laws — is watching the Australian experience as a real-world legal laboratory. The European Union, for its part, integrated minor protection requirements into its Digital Services Act, in force since 2024.

What all these countries are watching closely is not just the law's effect on teenage mental health — data that will take years to be scientifically validated — but its technical feasibility. If Australia, with its government resources and displayed political will, struggles to impose robust age verification, what does that say about the ability of less well-equipped countries to do the same? The honest answer is discouraging.

Emerging Technical Solutions for Age Verification

Several technology companies are offering age verification systems that claim to solve the privacy problem: cryptographic protocols allowing a third party to certify a user's age without revealing their identity to platforms. Veriff, Yoti, and other RegTech players are developing these solutions. The Australian e-Safety Commission published a report in May 2026 on "age proofs without tracing" that identifies three promising approaches but acknowledges that none can be deployed at scale before 2027 at the earliest.

In the meantime, platforms use hybrid methods: credit card verification (effective but discriminatory for young people without cards), biometric facial recognition (effective but intrusive), and linked parental account verification (easily bypassed). Each of these methods creates as many problems as it solves. Australia finds itself trapped in an impossible triangle between effectiveness, privacy, and accessibility.

Parents at the Heart of the Debate: Protection or Surveillance?

The Burden of Protection Often Falls on Parents

A recurring criticism of Australian-style laws is that they transfer responsibility for protecting children to parents without giving them the tools to act on it. The parental consent required by the Australian law assumes parents know what their children are doing online, understand the specific risks of each platform, and have the time and technical ability to manage their children's digital access. These assumptions are largely contradicted by the everyday reality of low-income or digitally less literate families.

Australian parent organizations — including Parents Australia and Parents' Voice — supported the law while calling for accompanying resources: practical guides, free training, helplines. These requests were partially met by the government, but the allocated budgets remain insufficient given the scale of the challenge. The e-Safety Commission estimates that 47 million additional Australian dollars would be needed for an effective national parental digital education program — a modest sum compared to the revenues platforms draw from the Australian market.

Digital Education as an Indispensable Complement

All experts agree on one point: the law alone is not enough. The University of Melbourne published a study in June 2026 recommending a "three-pillar approach": platform regulation, digital education in schools, and parental support. This approach corresponds to what the Danish government has implemented since 2021 with encouraging results: a measurable reduction in teenage screen time and improved mental well-being indicators. Denmark did not ban social media — it invested heavily in critical digital education from primary school onward.

For Australia, the Danish model is attractive but its transposition is complicated by the country's size and population diversity. Remote indigenous communities, recent immigrant families, under-equipped rural areas — all would require differentiated approaches that a uniform legislative framework cannot offer. The lesson from the first six months of the Australian law may be precisely this: protecting children online is not a matter of law but of integrated public policy.

Conclusion: Between Law and Reality, Bridges Must Be Built

Neither Surrendering the Field Nor Repeating the Mistakes

The conclusion of this column is not that governments should capitulate to social media and leave teenagers alone against predatory algorithms. No. Protecting children online is a necessity — and the arguments about social media's harmful effects on adolescent mental health are sufficiently documented to merit serious political action. But serious action does not always look like a spectacular ban.

What the Australian experience teaches is that sound public policy on this issue is composite: result obligations imposed on platforms (not just "reasonable steps"), age verification that also protects privacy, algorithms regulated to reduce exposure to harmful content, and solid digital education from the youngest ages. These measures are less photogenic than a total prohibition law. They are harder to explain at political rallies. But they stand a chance of working — unlike a ban that two thirds of affected teenagers circumvent within six months.

Generation Z Deserves Better

Today's teenagers grew up in a digital world. They cannot turn it off, and they should not have to. What they deserve is a digital environment designed for their well-being, and adults — parents, teachers, lawmakers, engineers — working together to build it. The surveys show that young people are asking for precisely this. 75% want platforms specially designed for them, with enhanced protections. That is an intelligent, pragmatic, and politically actionable demand. It is time governments listened.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My View on Digital Regulation

Maxime Marquette is not a digital libertarian who believes platforms can self-regulate. I believe in regulation — but regulation grounded in evidence and measurable effects. My skepticism toward total ban laws comes from reading the data, not from an ideology. If Stanford's studies were to show a significant positive effect of the Australian law, I would change my mind.

Methodological Limitations and Sources

The studies cited have limitations: relatively small samples, short observation periods (three to six months), self-reported behaviors. One-year data will be more robust. I did not have access to raw platform data on blocked or deleted accounts, which would offer a fuller picture. My analysis rests on academic publications and reports from recognized institutes.

Sources

Primary sources

CGTN — "Australia to strengthen child social media ban despite limited impact" — June 26, 2026

The Guardian — "Four in five under-16s in Australia using social media despite ban, study shows" — June 24, 2026

Phys.org — "Australia's under-16 social media ban shows little early effect on adolescents" — June 25, 2026

Secondary sources

Family Online Safety Institute — Report on Australian perceptions of the social media ban — June 2026

Science Media Centre — Expert reactions to the BMJ study on Australia's ban — June 25, 2026

Western Sydney University — Impact of the ban on young people's access to news — May 2026

EFE — Six-month review of Australia's social media ban — June 4, 2026