TL;DR
Australia’s Senate blocked amendments to strengthen the world-first child social media ban, sending the bill to an eight-week inquiry. Seven in 10 children who had accounts when the ban took effect in December are still on restricted platforms.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Friday condemned senators who blocked amendments to the country’s world-first social media ban for children, warning that the delay would give tech platforms time to destroy documents that could be used as evidence against them. The conservative Liberal Party and the minor Greens party referred the legislation to an eight-week Senate inquiry on Thursday.
The amendments would have expanded the powers of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s online safety watchdog, to enforce the ban that has prohibited children under 16 from holding accounts on platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube since December.
The enforcement gap
The ban looked effective on paper. The government initially reported that more than five million under-16 accounts had been removed, deactivated, or restricted after the law took effect on 10 December.
The reality proved different. The eSafety Commissioner reported in March that seven in 10 children who held accounts on restricted platforms when the ban began were still on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.
Most had simply declared an age over 16 or submitted a selfie that the platform’s verification system accepted.
Commissioner Inman Grant said in April she was considering court action against those four platforms and YouTube, alleging they were not taking reasonable steps to exclude children. She was satisfied with progress made by the remaining five restricted platforms: X, Kick, Reddit, Threads, and Twitch.
What the amendments would change
The current law gives the commissioner power to demand information from platforms, but not documents. The amendments would close that gap, allowing her to compel internal records, board minutes, and communications about how platforms have responded to the ban.
The bill would also let the commissioner demand information from third parties, including age assurance technology providers, to test whether platforms’ claims about underage circumvention are accurate. Maximum fines would double from A$49.5 million to A$99 million ($68 million).
“If it was passed yesterday, that would have been the date from which these demands could be made by the commissioner,” Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “So then fines can be issued.”
Who blocked it and why
The centre-left Labor government does not hold a majority in the Senate. The Liberal opposition and the Greens, who have always opposed the ban, combined to send the bill to an inquiry despite having supported the original legislation with overwhelming support in 2024.
Opposition communications spokesperson Sarah Henderson said the amendments “need to be tougher,” calling the ban “a half-baked law which is poorly designed, which was rushed, which is badly implemented and which is not working.” Greens Senator David Shoebridge questioned why a fine that had never been issued needed to be doubled.
The global wave
Australia’s struggles have not discouraged other countries from following its lead. The UK announced in June that it would ban under-16s from social media apps including TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, with restrictions expected to take effect in spring 2027.
France, Denmark, Spain, and several other European countries have announced or implemented similar age restrictions. What they will all confront is the same problem Australia has spent seven months discovering.
Passing the law is the straightforward part. Getting platforms to comply, proving they have not, and building age verification systems that actually work without compromising privacy is where every child safety regime runs into the wall.
Communications Minister Anika Wells said this week she had received monthly updates from the eSafety Commissioner since March. “We are not seeing improvements,” she said.
