Australian government's social media ban for under-16's starts on December 10 2025

In Australia, all children under the age of 16 will be banned from platforms including Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok, X and Reddit from December 10. The federal government says the ban will protect the mental health and wellbeing of children and teens, and limit their exposure to harmful content.

There's still no clear information on how it will be implemented, and what role parents will be expected to play in supporting/enforcing the ban.

As I have an 8 y/o daughter this directly affects me, and I will not be playing 'cop' for the government to block my daughter from accessing whatever content *I* alone decide is appropriate for her to view.

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Maturebate · 70-79, M

Surely the pressure is on the sites to block access. Just "banning" U 16 will be futile . Like age rating movies hoping parents will enforce the restrictions. Will they use facial recog to guess the age of teens? Immense invasion of privacy if they do?

zonavar68 · 56-60, M

@Maturebate Some talk of facial rec with AI yes, which of course requires the device to have a camera (unsafe in itself), but also talk of adult users being forced to upload government id images, doing full ID checks, etc. and this is one way that digital ID will get pushed more. My laptop PC (a toughbook cf-31) has neither a camera or a microphone, so it can't be used for spying/monitoring like a 'smart speaker' does with audio, and no video ability.

Other ideas are simply disabling any/all accounts that a system 'thinks' is being used by u16's, or even forcibly blocking and deleting such accounts.