Australia’s new social media law took effect on Dec. 10, 2025, raising the age to open or maintain social media accounts to 16. It was a global first. The law called for the biggest social media platforms to do more than just ask for a birthdate. Now, they would be legally required to take responsibility for verifying and enforcing an age minimum. Half a year on, the world is watching closely. Are the restrictions working?Some critics and media outlets have prematurely concluded that the policy has failed. They point to early surveys showing that under-16 social media use has fallen only partially, and that most kids are still accessing social media. And they argue that age limits will never work, that these laws miss the real problem of harmful platform design, and that the countries considering following Australia—of which there are many—should reconsider. The truth is far more encouraging. There are several promising trends that other countries are now building upon, reflecting the importance of Australia’s pioneering policies. It started with a relatively smooth rollout. All 10 platforms took steps to verify users' ages and remove accounts of those under 16. Now, fewer kids in the land down under are using social media, and more than a dozen other countries, including Indonesia, Canada, Malaysia, the UAE, France, Spain, and the U.K., are beginning their own journeys to rein in social media. The world is, and should, follow Oz’s lead. Early signs of successWhen Australia’s law went into effect last December, 10 social media platforms—Facebook, Kick, Reddit, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, Instagram, Snapchat, X, and YouTube—removed 4.7 million under-16 accounts belonging to an estimated 2.5 million Aussies between the ages of eight and 15.To be sure, that does not mean that these kids can’t access social media altogether, since many likely have several accounts across platforms. But it shows that the law made immediate progress and compelled platforms to take action on a massive scale. Still, some have said that this decline is too modest, suggested that kids could also be finding workarounds, and concluded that therefore, the law is failing. So let’s look more closely at the numbers.Several early studies indicate that social media use and account ownership among Australian children under 16 declined between 9% and 40%. To understand this wide variation between studies, it’s important to know what Australia’s social media age minimum actually does. The law prevents those under the age of 16 from creating or keeping accounts on covered platforms by limiting the age at which minors can sign the contract required to open an account and consent to share their data via a terms of service. Some studies examine account ownership, others measure actual usage, and still others focus on either individual platforms or multiple platforms combined, leading to substantial variation in the results of different studies. The law does not eliminate children’s access to social media content. That is because it was never designed to. Account-based access—and the data the user agrees to share with the platform upon sign-up—is the vehicle for many of the worst social media harms that children experience, such as late-night notifications, interactions with anonymous strangers, posting one’s images online, “like” counts, and algorithmic recommendations designed to maximally “engage” or addict that particular child. For this reason, studies that measure whether a kid has access to any platform, whether an underage user is using an account or not, will greatly underestimate the law’s effects. We can see why this distinction matters when looking at YouTube, for example. YouTube is often accessed without an account because most of its content is viewable that way. This means that while many YouTube accounts have been revoked since the age minimum took effect, YouTube usage by under-16s is less likely to be affected by the new law compared to platforms like Snapchat, which require an account to view content. The difference shows up in data from the parental control company Qustodio: after the age minimum went into effect, Snapchat monthly usage dropped roughly 40% among 13- to 15-year-olds while YouTube usage dropped just 3%. In Australia, we see how two things can be true at once: under-16 account ownership may have fallen substantially, while most children may still be viewing content on at least one of the covered platforms without logging in. Another way to measure the law’s efficacy is to ask parents themselves. In a YouGov survey conducted one month after the law took effect, three in five Australians said the ban had been effective. A majority (61%) of parents of children 16-and-under reported at least two (out of four) positive behavioral changes in their kids, including more in-person social interaction (43%), children who are noticeably more present and engaged (38%), and improvements in their relationship with their child (38%). When it comes to measuring parents' support for regulating social media use among kids, the results are resounding. Parents globally continue to support the policy by wide margins, which is a major reason the political will to replicate this law is spreading across countries. Enforcement and compliance will improve over timeSo social media use among Australian kids has declined somewhat. And while disappointment about the rate and speed of decline is understandable, it ultimately misunderstands how the law was crafted. The reality is that Australia’s protections are designed to improve over time in three ways. First, the companies will be forced to improve. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has framed this as the start of long-term cultural change, not a one-and-done fix. The regulator is now building evidence for enforcement against companies that didn’t take “reasonable steps” to comply. In addition, the Australian government recently doubled the fines for noncompliance to further incentivize the companies to take more effective action.Second, norms will shift over the next few years as a “no account before 16” childhood becomes ordinary rather than exceptional. Fewer children will feel the need to use platforms to avoid being left out. In the long run, the law’s effectiveness will not be judged primarily by how it influenced today’s 15-year-olds. It will be judged by how it changes the nature of childhood for kids who are now 10 and under. If Australian kids are like American kids, most were on track to open multiple social media accounts by the time they were 12, and a third of them would have soon been scrolling social media “almost constantly.” But now their parents will find it far easier to band together and point to the bright line the law has created. Their schools will no longer use social media to share information. As a result, delaying social media until age 16 should eventually become the standard, not the exception. This kind of societal shift takes time—but it is the key ingredient to permanently changing behavior. The Sydney Harbour Bridge is illuminated to mark the national under 16 social media ban coming into effect on December 10, 2025 in Sydney, Australia. —Brendon Thorne—Getty ImagesPrivacy protection is improvingThen there’s the issue of privacy. Won’t verifying everyone’s age force all users to hand over sensitive identity documents? It’s a legitimate concern, one that every government will need to address as it designs social media age limit policies.The good news is that privacy-safe age verification already exists, and the Australian law—along with the global interest in it—is creating a robust market for better solutions. Consider two popular methods, neither of which requires people to submit any documents or even reveal their name or birthdate to the platform. The first is biometric age estimation. For example, Instagram lets you verify your age by taking a short video selfie, which is analyzed by Yoti, a specialized third-party provider. Yoti estimates whether the user meets Instagram’s age minimum, and shares only that result with Instagram, after which both companies delete the facial data. The second involves third-party vouching, where a person or company that already knows your age provides a single statement—typically, “this user is over 16”—without disclosing any of the data behind it. Google and Apple are making this easier to do at the device level, since many users already shared that information for other reasons (e.g., using Apple Pay or Google Wallet). Apple’s Declared Age Range API lets the operating system attest to a broad age range, with no birthdate and no document changing hands. In May 2025, Google added zero-knowledge proofs to Google Wallet, so users can confirm their age across apps and websites without handing over a name or date of birth. Neither method requires you to share your name, birthday, or any form of ID. Developing these tools and prioritizing privacy protection will be key as Australia and the rest of the world take on social media regulation. And let’s keep this all in perspective. The privacy question is about sharing a little bit of information once, at account creation, in order to grant a social media company the right to take, use, and sell gigabytes of your personal information for many years to come. The privacy risk of a single age check pales next to the privacy heist that begins the moment the age-check is passed. Age verification laws do not add a new stream of data. To protect children, they place a floodgate at the mouth of a raging river of data.Companies are making their products saferSome reformers worry that age limits are a distraction from another important goal: changing the manipulative design of social media products, including the algorithmic feeds, autoplay, infinite scroll, and round-the-clock notifications that exploit developmental vulnerabilities in young people. The worry is this: will age minimums let companies off the hook? To be sure, design reform is essential. But age limits and design reform are complementary tools in the same project. They are stronger together than either is alone.In fact, Australia’s age limits have already pressured companies to reform their products’ designs. Earlier this month, for instance, Snap announced that all 13 to 15-year-old Snapchat users worldwide will be moved to a “friends-only” experience where “they’ll be able to create, save, and showcase Stories and Spotlight videos on a dedicated profile that is visible only to their mutually accepted friends.” (Content from this age group was previously distributed to non-Friend audiences through Snapchat’s Spotlight feature.) This global change is in part due to the global spread of age minimum laws. With age minimums as leverage, the trust and safety teams within each company can advocate for design changes, like Snapchat’s, that prioritize kids’ well-being and safety over engagement. Company leaders are more easily convinced when the alternative (ending up on the list of age-gated platforms in many more countries) is far more detrimental to the company’s bottom line. In other words, age limits change the economic calculus for exploitative features. These laws incentivize companies to design their products with kids’ safety in mind and force them to prove their platforms are safe to avoid being age-limited, rather than allowing them to experiment on kids for decades until social scientists can prove that the platform’s design features are harming young users. For instance, Canada’s proposed Safe Social Media Act (Bill C-34) makes the logic explicit: it bars under-16s from social media accounts but offers companies an exemption if they can demonstrate they are indeed safe. That is the key move. An age-limit law that says “companies with harmful designs may no longer serve kids” (as Indonesia’s does) is functionally equivalent to saying “companies must reform their design.” However, the burden of proof now lies on companies to prove the safety of their products before accessing vulnerable consumers—which is something that building contractors, restaurants, and drug makers already have to do.Age limits do not let companies off the hook for design reform. On the contrary, we now see companies making regular announcements about their efforts to improve the safety of their products for teens. Design-reform laws set the goal; age limits create the business incentive to actually meet it. Countries should pursue both.Better online spaces can now emergeFinally, there are concerns that keeping kids off social media platforms will deprive them of access to information and important communities, and will limit their ability to express themselves. They see age minimums as an infringement on children’s rights. Governments should take these concerns seriously. But based on what has already happened in Australia, we believe age minimums will create a larger market for platforms that are both safer for young people and more conducive to authentic speech.Let’s look at access first. As explained earlier, Australia’s age limit does not stop kids from accessing social media content. Plus, the wider internet remains available. What’s more, age limits have the potential to expand young people’s opportunities for genuine online communities by moving discussions to better-designed and safer spaces. Countries that mandate design reforms and age limits open up more space for competition from new entrants who designed their products for safety from the start. Over time, use should shift away from the handful of manipulative giants who now dominate our kids’ free time. Laws like Utah’s Digital Choice Act, which goes into effect later this year, could further accelerate this shift by enabling users to move their data to better-designed social media spaces as they please.This shift to safer platforms matters most for kids in historically marginalized groups, who are often poorly served by products that were not designed with them in mind. Australia’s experience already hints at the possibility of a positive migration. In the months after the new law went into effect, the LGBTQIA+ youth organization Minus18 opened a free, moderated community for under-16s and saw a 303% surge in requests to join. As the group’s general manager says, “there is a strong signal that queer youth are seeking safe and moderated platforms.” They do note that some kids may also drift toward unmoderated corners of the internet. But this is precisely why the goal should be to also pass design reforms, in addition to age limits. Importantly, as the world enters the next stage of social media regulation, we must consider the status quo. What is the cost of inaction? When it comes to authentic expression, for instance, today’s large social media platforms, which prioritize virality and favor a small set of influencers and “supersharers,” are a poor vehicle. People tailor what they say to what the algorithm rewards—incentivizing fearful, outrageous, and polarizing content. Politicians, publishers, and aspiring influencers openly complain about the gap between what they want to express and what achieves reach. Many kids worry about the permanence of their posts, the possibility that anything they say could go viral, or the risk of being mocked. Nearly half of Americans say they self-censor out of fear of how they’ll be received. In a Knight Foundation study, 56% of students reported believing that social media stifles free expression due to fear of being attacked. Our current system, which is optimized for engagement, is not a neutral public square that helps people express their authentic selves. It is often more like the ancient Roman Coliseum—a space designed to provoke aggressive combat to please the crowd. Unlike the more open and playful internet of the 1990s, many people find today’s social media platforms intimidating. If age limits can open up a market for online spaces where kids can express themselves safely and find supportive communities, the net result will be a gain, not a loss. Give it timeThe Australian social media law has not failed. In fact, it has changed the game for the better for everyone. Already, hundreds of thousands of kids use these platforms less or not at all. Some have taken up offline outdoor activities as an alternative. Parents finally have a line they can hold together, and many are already reporting improved relationships with their children. Privacy-safe verification technology is improving more rapidly because Australia created a much larger market for it. Companies are reforming under pressure, and better-designed online spaces are being built. Australia’s bold law set off a chain of responses around the world and across the industry. As lawmakers and companies take on the challenge of protecting kids online, parents are cheering them on. In each case, there will be important lessons learned and refinements made. But the most important lesson from Australia’s bold action is that this will be a long process, not a quick fix. While we won’t know the full effects of the Aussie social media law for years, the signs of success are there, and one thing is certain: Australia did the world a huge favor by going first.