Technology & Science
Meta & YouTube Start Removing Under-16 Users as Australia’s Social Media Ban Enters Final Week
In the first week of December 2025, a week before Australia’s new law takes effect on 10 Dec, major platforms began forcibly logging out hundreds of thousands of 13-15-year-olds while a High Court challenge and government threats to widen the ban intensified.
Focusing Facts
- Meta confirmed on 4 Dec it is deleting or disabling all Australian accounts it believes belong to users under 16, including roughly 350,000 Instagram profiles, to avoid fines of up to A$49.5 million per breach.
- YouTube announced on 4 Dec it will automatically sign out its estimated 325,000 Australian users aged 13-15 and block uploads, comments and subscriptions from 10 Dec onward.
- On 1 Dec, two 15-year-olds backed by the Digital Freedom Project lodged a High Court case arguing the ban violates the implied constitutional freedom of political communication.
Context
Age-gating media is not new—think of the 1954 US Comics Code or Britain’s 1984 ‘video nasties’ crackdown—but Australia is now applying a Prohibition-style blanket rule to social media rather than content. The move sits at the intersection of a decades-long trend toward state paternalism online (from the 1996 US Communications Decency Act to the EU’s 2018 GDPR age checks) and the tech giants’ waning political clout. Whether the ban curbs harm or merely drives teens to VPN-enabled “speakeasy” apps will shape global regulation: Malaysia and parts of the EU are already signalling copy-cat laws. On a century horizon this moment tests how societies balance childhood protection, free expression and digital identity infrastructure—issues likely to define citizenship in algorithmic states far beyond today’s headline about 16-year-olds losing their Instagram feeds.
Perspectives
International wire services
e.g., France 24, RTL Today, RTE.ie — Present Australia’s law as a pioneering child-safety measure, noting the government’s claim that platforms must block under-16s or face hefty fines. By largely echoing officials’ statements and labeling the ban a “world-first,” the coverage risks normalizing the policy and downplaying domestic legal challenges or implementation problems that are only briefly mentioned.
Digital-rights & tech-industry outlets
e.g., MediaNama, WebProNews — Argue the blanket ban is disproportionate, infringes the implied right to political communication, and may push teens toward less-regulated spaces, citing legal challenges and YouTube’s warnings. These pieces foreground civil-liberties arguments and platform critiques, reflecting the interests of tech firms and online-rights activists while giving limited weight to evidence of online harm cited by the government.
Right-leaning Australian media critics
e.g., News.com.au, Sky News Australia — Characterise the policy’s rollout as costly, rushed and prone to ‘scope creep,’ framing it as another Labor government misstep. Political antipathy toward the Albanese government shapes the narrative, emphasising taxpayer waste and bureaucratic overreach while overlooking parental support for tougher safety rules.