📊 poll results
Australia's under-16 social media ban: keep pushing, or admit it's not working?
🏆 Leading: 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.

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. is leading so far with 33%.

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. is second. On this few votes the split is still anyone's guess.

Votes have come in from 2 countries, most of them from China.

The poll is still live and picked up a vote today.

hewsay who say wut? 💬
📊 poll results
Australia's under-16 social media ban: keep pushing, or admit it's not working?
33%
Leading answer
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.
results so far
hewsay.com ↗

Discussion

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react to this tea 👀
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.