Australia's under-16 social media ban: keep pushing, or admit it's not working?

Australia banned under-16s from social media back in December 2025 — real ID checks, platforms fined for letting kids slip through. Eight months later, reporting from outlets like Al Jazeera and Bloomberg shows most teens are still finding their way online: fake birthdates, older siblings' logins, VPNs. Supporters say any real drop in usage is still a public-health win worth having. Critics say a law this easy to dodge just teaches kids to lie and quietly cuts parents out of the loop. Where do you land?

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Keep it and close the gaps. Fake birthdates only work because verification is weak — bring in real ID or biometric age checks and make platforms actually liable when they fail, even if that means less privacy for everyone.

Scrap it. A ban that teens dodge in five minutes with a fake birthdate or a big sibling's login doesn't stop anything — it just teaches kids to lie to platforms and gives parents a false sense that the problem is handled.

Call it a win already. Even a partial drop in under-16 usage is a real public-health outcome, and no law is ever 100% dodge-proof on day one — perfect enforcement was never the bar.

Wrong target entirely. Age gates fight a losing battle against motivated teenagers — regulate the addictive algorithms, infinite scroll, and push notifications instead, so the platform is less harmful whether a kid is 14 or 40.

Too early to judge. Eight months isn't enough time to know if this sticks — check back in two or three years once the novelty of dodging it wears off and see if usage among under-16s is actually lower.

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