On December 10, 2025, Australia became the first country in the world to enforce a national law banning children under 16 from using social media platforms. Six months later, the results are a complex mix of genuine progress and significant challenges — and governments around the world, including in countries like the UK, UAE, Indonesia, and New Zealand, are watching closely to decide whether to follow.
Australia doubled its potential fines on tech platforms in June 2026, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese acknowledged that “big tech are not doing enough to comply with the law.” For Pakistan — home to more than 70 million social media users and a growing national conversation about children’s digital safety — the Australian experiment offers some of the most important practical lessons available anywhere in the world right now.
What the Australian Law Actually Says
Australia’s Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act requires social media platforms — including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter) — to take “reasonable steps” to prevent children under 16 from creating accounts. The responsibility for enforcement lies with the platforms, not with parents or children. Platforms that fail to comply face fines of up to AUD $50 million (approximately USD $33 million) per systemic failure — a figure that was doubled in June 2026 as the government escalated pressure on non-compliant companies.
The law explicitly does not apply to messaging services (WhatsApp), educational platforms, or gaming services — though the UK’s proposed equivalent legislation goes further, including gaming and live-streaming platforms in its scope.
Six Months In: What the Numbers Show
| Metric | Result (as of June 2026) |
|---|---|
| Under-16 accounts deactivated or restricted | 5 million+ |
| Countries actively considering similar laws | UK, UAE, Indonesia, New Zealand |
| Platforms fined under the law | Not yet confirmed publicly |
| Penalty per systemic violation (doubled June 2026) | AUD $50 million (~USD $33 million) |
| BMJ peer-reviewed evaluation verdict | “Insufficient evidence” of sharp reduction in social media use |
| Primary circumvention methods | Fake profiles, accounts of older relatives, private browsers, VPNs |
The headline number — 5 million accounts deactivated or restricted — represents real enforcement activity. But a peer-reviewed evaluation published in the British Medical Journal in June 2026 found “insufficient evidence” that the ban had significantly reduced actual social media use among under-16s, noting “substantial circumvention” of the rules. Children were using accounts registered to parents or older siblings, creating fake profiles, or logging in through private browsers.
What Does Work: The Shift in Conversation
Despite the circumvention challenges, supporters of the Australian law argue that measuring its success purely by usage statistics misses the point. The law has achieved something that no advertising campaign or school programme could: it has made it socially and legally clear that under-16 social media use is a concern serious enough to warrant government regulation at the national level.
That shift in framing — from “parents should manage this” to “platforms are legally responsible” — changes the dynamics of accountability. Before the law, a parent who wanted to limit their child’s social media access was fighting against platforms designed to maximise engagement and against social norms that treated restriction as unusual. After the law, restricting access is the legally mandated default position.
Prime Minister Albanese has described himself as “heartened by the shift in conversation and the global momentum” — and the global momentum is real. The UK has announced plans that go further than Australia’s, including gaming and live-streaming platforms. Indonesia, with a much younger and larger population than Australia, is actively studying the Australian model. The UAE, already known for strict digital content regulation, is evaluating a version suited to its context.
How Countries Compare on Social Media Regulation for Children
| Country | Policy Status (June 2026) | Age Limit | Enforcement Approach |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | Law in force since Dec 2025 | Under 16 | Platform responsibility, fines up to AUD $50M |
| United Kingdom | Legislation in progress (goes further than AU) | Under 16 (proposed) | Includes gaming + live-streaming |
| UAE | Under review | TBD | Expected strict enforcement |
| Indonesia | Studying Australian model | TBD | TBD |
| New Zealand | Watching Australia closely | TBD | TBD |
| United States | No federal law; state-level action only | Varies by state | Minimal enforcement |
| Pakistan | No specific child social media law | None | PTA content regulation only |
The Pakistan Context: Why This Matters Here
Pakistan has more than 70 million social media users — the 10th largest social media market in the world by user count. A significant and growing proportion of those users are under 16. The country has seen multiple high-profile cases of children and teenagers being harmed through online exploitation, cyberbullying, and exposure to harmful content, but has no dedicated legal framework addressing minors’ social media access specifically.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has the power to block or restrict apps and platforms — powers it has exercised on multiple occasions, most controversially with extended bans on social media during periods of political unrest. But blocking and regulating are different things. A blanket block of TikTok for national security reasons affects all users; an age-based access regulation specifically targets the protection of minors without disrupting adult access.
Pakistan’s existing digital regulation framework — the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) and its amendments — focuses primarily on content crimes like defamation, cyber harassment, and extremist content. There is no equivalent of Australia’s minimum age law, and no current government proposal to introduce one.
What Pakistan Can Learn
1. Platform accountability is more effective than user restriction. Australia placed the burden on platforms, not on children or parents. This is the correct approach: a 14-year-old has limited power to resist a platform designed by hundreds of engineers to maximise engagement. The company has the power, the resources, and the data to implement age verification — it simply needs the legal requirement to do so.
2. Circumvention is real but does not invalidate the law. The fact that children can bypass the law via VPNs or older relatives’ accounts does not mean the law has failed. It means the law requires continued investment in technical age-verification standards — which is the direction that Australia, the UK, and the EU are all moving in.
3. The conversation shift matters as much as the usage change. If Pakistan were to pass an equivalent law, even a partially enforced one, it would signal to parents, schools, and children that the state takes online safety seriously — creating social permission for parents to restrict access without being seen as unusually restrictive.
4. Start with the biggest harms, not the biggest platforms. Australia’s law wisely exempted messaging platforms like WhatsApp, which families rely on for communication. Any Pakistani equivalent should focus on algorithmic recommendation platforms — TikTok, Instagram, YouTube — which have the most documented association with mental health harms in younger users, rather than attempting to regulate all digital communication.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Australia’s social media ban apply to YouTube?
Yes — YouTube is classified as a social media platform under Australian law and is covered by the ban for under-16s. However, YouTube’s educational content has made its exclusion a topic of debate, since many schools use the platform for legitimate learning purposes. Platforms can apply for exemptions for specific educational use cases, but the default rule applies to under-16 account creation.
What happens to a child’s existing social media account under the Australian law?
Existing accounts belonging to verified under-16 users are required to be deactivated or age-restricted by platforms. The 5 million+ accounts deactivated or restricted since December 2025 primarily represents this retrospective compliance activity. New account creation by under-16s is supposed to be blocked at the point of registration through age verification — though the effectiveness of those verification mechanisms is precisely what the BMJ evaluation found “insufficient evidence” to confirm.
