To agree with the Australian age assurance for social media (ban for under 16s)

[estrogone]

I agree that U16s should not have access to social media. There have been so many shocking instances of young people taking their own lives by suicide or dieing through social media challenges, not to mention bullying, porn, revenge porn, catfishing and so much more.

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/big-tech-stops-complaining-starts-complying-with-australias-teen-social-media-2025-11-12/

Wondering if this is a watershed moment a la John Howard's gun ban in the 90s, or if it will just drive children under ground.

Tech Companies face fines of up to AU$49.5M, so it will be very interesting to see how the roll out goes.

I think it’s a good idea but wonder how easy it will
be in practice. Be interesting to observe.

It would be amazing if it works.

Smart phones should be illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to be in possession of.

Yeah, it’s gunna be fun.

Anyway, FYI - www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/industry-regulation/social-media-age-restrictions/which-platforms-are-age-restricted

So at 17 you can drive an actual car that can kill people, but not have a smart phone?

This is interesting - this family of influencers are leaving Australia because their 14 year old won't be able to influence https://7news.com.au/news/empire-family-uproots-their-perth-life-as-australias-under-16-social-media-ban-looms-c-20634126

The 'ban' comes into effect on 10th December. I live in Australia and following rules is very much part of the national psyche. I sometimes that tedious but on this issue, I really hope it is effective.

Wondering how the current 13-15 year olds will cope.

Aussie mum here. I welcome this ban, and the intention behind it wholeheartedly. But as a mum of a 13 year old son, and as a high school teacher who talks to students in this age group and their parents daily, I can’t see it working. Both kids and their parents are already planning workarounds. Kids don’t intend to abide by this, and kids are smart! An even bigger problem - many parents support them or just don’t care.

The practicalities of this seem difficult. In theory it is a good idea, in reality it is going to be a struggle.

I hope that with it coming from govt, enough people will comply to make it work.

It's much easier not to do something if most of your mates aren't doing it too. Less FOMO.

That's why it's so hard in the UK to put it off. There are no restrictions so everyone has a phone, in fact you can't even catch the school bus without a pass on your smart phone.

Little things like that undermine parental choice.

So to the kids working out how to get around the law in aus... there might not be that many other kids doing that, so it might not be quite as worth it.

Australian mum of a 15yo here. I think the ban is bullshit.

I don’t like how our children are going to be expected to hand over personal ID documents to prove their age. It’s drilled into everyone on the internet to not hand that sort of thing over and now 16 year olds are going to be expected to do it.

My 15yo doesn’t have any social media accounts. We’ve told her why we don’t want her to have any and the danger of predators and scammers. She accepts that. If there’s anything she wants to see that requires a social media account then DH or I will use ours on our phones, she can look at whatever it is, and then she hands our phones back.

Of course parents are planning how to get around the ban. Same for the teenagers. I’d expect nothing less.

Early next year Australia will be requiring all adults to prove their ID to access porn sites. No more incognito mode to view it. VPNs are going to get really popular because fuck handing over ID to random websites.

I think it's a really, really bad idea. Australians are generally pretty law abiding and all this is going to do is raise a generation that thinks laws can be ignored - because many people are planning on ignoring it. So then you'll have people deciding for themselves what's a law worth following versus one that is overreach and can be worked around.

While the idea is good, it’s going to be very difficult to implement.

Using a VPN is easy and since many parents take out phone contracts for their kids, how do you prove that a phone belongs to a parent or child? There’s enough cybercrime out there without police investigating whether mother or child owns the phone.

I think the massive fines being imposed on the tech companies may make a difference. The device won't make a difference it's the account that will be screened - with the platform being legally required to implement age assurance on accounts they are provisioning.

With a $49 million fine I reckon they will algorithmically implement controls. I for one hope it works. Social media - is in my opinion a scourge. I don't have any SM accounts myself (despite being forced to keep a meta account which is blank with no connections for my work access to the company page).

I can't see any benefit of children using SM. So definitely don't agree that this legislation is bullshit

Great idea! Just no smart phones before 16 would be better. But it’s a good start.

I have family there and two of the kids, 14-16 use social media for their sports and both are up and coming at these sports with their clubs. Will they have to close down the accounts they have been using? I cannot see my family complying, australian or not to be honest. These are good kids and doing well for themselves, be sad to see all their sm history go down the drain.

My sons diabetic and his CGM is linked to an app on his phone ,he's 19 next month so an adult
But plenty of children have diabetes and wear CGM,s you cant just put a blanket ban on them.

Presumably, this is going t8 be very difficult to police?

Why do people always equate smart phones with social media? The two are not necessarily linked. Teenagers use smart phones for many things these days - banking/paying for things, homework, apps for buses/trains/railcards, buying online/vinted etc, messaging friends and family, checking email and logging into school apps, google maps and satnav, uber….
It’s not the 80s anymore. We live in an age that increasingly uses phones for everything. That’s not going to change.

Apologies for reactivating this thread; but I am wondering why the UK is not doing more to protect our children. Apprentice we as parents have responsibility too but we can’t control everything

You pretty much can control everything as a parent, where social media is concerned the only ways a child can access it are by you giving them access, allowing another person to buy them a smart phone and not checking access, or via a friends phone. Friends phone is most likely, but unless your child is rarely at home and rarely supervised that significantly reduces time exposed to social media.

Article I read interviewed a few kids and all still using it, it just goes underground then and parents can’t check phones.

Totally agree but also agree with teens that there will be some resulting isolation- one of my kids in particular only got chatting with people in his class through their class Snapchat (14yos), and my friend’s son started playing online with people from his class. I do think we’ve lost the battle and something this huge needs to be done though

I'm also perplexed at the ban smartphones for under 18s poster. Without social media, what is the issue with smartphones?

Nobody would argue that teens shouldn't be allowed to make phonecalls, use a map, listen to music, check their online banking, buy a bus ticket, set an alarm, and on and on and on. Phones are just useful pieces of kit and embedded in modern life now.

As the mum of a toddler I am hopeful that bans like these, whilst they may be too late for the current crop of teenagers, will help with kids who are still young and not yet exposed to social media. It helps enormously as a parent to be able to say no, you can't use social media or have a smart phone if its mandated by the government and so none of their friends or peers have one either.

Ideally I would just give her an apple watch or a brick phone that allows her to contact me in an emergency but that's it. I had that as a young teen in the 2000s and it was fine. Judging by how much I was glued to MSN they can entertain themselves enough just by texting amongst themselves.