In this article, Clare Rowe contextualises and disseminates the IPA’s research into censorship laws.
If the government intends this ban to be enforceable law, it must demonstrate a willingness to confront global technology companies when they fail to comply.
It has now been one month since Australia’s under-16 social media ban came into effect on December 10, and early signs suggest the legislation may be drifting into an uncomfortable space: morally correct in intent, but weak in execution.
In the past four weeks, many teenagers who were already active on platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat report little meaningful change. Some accounts were suspended, but many were not. Others were quickly reactivated through obvious workarounds – parental accounts, altered age settings, or alternative verification methods.
More strikingly, a significant number of young users say nothing happened at all, despite their profiles clearly stating they are under the age threshold.
If this is accurate, it raises a question far larger than teenage screen habits. What happens to the authority of law when legislation is passed, publicly celebrated, and then quietly ignored by the very companies tasked with complying?
Australia has now made it illegal for social media platforms to host under-16 users. If those platforms remain in breach weeks after the law commenced, then enforcement action should already be visible. Fines, sanctions, or at least formal notices would signal that the government intends its laws to function as more than moral statements. To date, there has been no such signal.
This absence matters. Law works not only through punishment but through credibility. When legislation is widely flouted without consequence, it risks undermining public confidence not just in that law, but in the seriousness of the legislative process itself.
That does not mean the policy is misguided. In fact, the core principle behind the ban is sound. Children should not be on social media. Decades of developmental psychology, alongside mounting empirical evidence, point to the same conclusion: early exposure to algorithm-driven platforms increases vulnerability to anxiety, impulsivity, social comparison and reduced attention capacity. On this, the government is right.
But there is a crucial distinction between laws that set moral direction and laws that are practically enforceable. The danger lies in pretending they are the same thing.
In practice, the ban appears to have done little to meaningfully disrupt teenagers already embedded in social media ecosystems. Those habits, friendships and identities do not disappear with a legislative date. Behavioural change at that stage relies more on parental authority than government regulation.
“Whether this moment becomes an example of regulatory leadership or regulatory theatre will depend on what happens next.”
Where the law is likely to have its greatest effect is with the next generation – children who have not yet joined social platforms. For those families, the ban provides something powerful: a clear social norm. Parents can now say “no” without feeling like the outlier. Children will grow up assuming social media comes later, not as a rite of passage at 11 or 12. That is no small achievement.
In this sense, the ban functions less as an immediate corrective and more as a long-term cultural reset. The benefits, if they materialise, will take years to measure. Yet the legislation has been framed as a rapid response to a current crisis. That mismatch between political timelines and human development timelines deserves closer scrutiny.
There is also a quieter truth embedded in this debate that we rarely acknowledge. The reason children struggle with social media is not because they are uniquely vulnerable. It is because the platforms are addictive by design. Adults are not immune. We scroll compulsively, struggle to concentrate, react impulsively, and increasingly find sustained attention difficult. The under-16 ban implicitly acknowledges a broader problem we are reluctant to confront: social media is not benign at any age.
From that perspective, the policy represents an overdue moral line in the sand. But moral clarity alone does not absolve governments of the responsibility to govern effectively.
If the Albanese government intends this ban to be enforceable law, it must demonstrate a willingness to confront global technology companies when they fail to comply. If, instead, the policy is primarily about norm-setting and long-term cultural change, that should be stated honestly. There is nothing inherently wrong with symbolic legislation, provided it is not sold as something else.
Australia has been praised internationally for taking a stand, and other countries are now watching closely. Whether this moment becomes an example of regulatory leadership or regulatory theatre will depend on what happens next.
Good law does two things. It reflects shared values, and it is capable of being enforced. When one is pursued without the other, the risk is not simply inefficiency, but erosion of trust in the law itself.
One month on, the social media ban sits at a crossroads. It can mature into a credible regulatory framework, or settle into symbolism that quietly shifts responsibility back onto parents while platforms carry on largely unchanged. The choice is not between abandoning the policy or defending it uncritically. The real test is whether Australia is willing to align its moral intentions with the hard work of enforcement.
That, more than any teenage workaround, will determine whether this legislation ultimately strengthens or weakens our faith in governance.
