Study Finds Gaps in Australia's Teen Social Media Ban
Australia's digital platforms are struggling to initiate age verification for users, making a ground-breaking ban on teen social media ineffective, according to research from a team that guided the government in applying these restrictions.
Since December, Australia’s recent social media legislation has required platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube to prevent individuals under 16 from creating accounts.
Operators are required to take "appropriate measures" to adhere, and the government has advised employing various checks to verify users' age.
The prohibition has faced significant backlash, with research indicating that the majority of individuals under 16 can still reach these platforms, leading Australia to increase the maximum fine last month and caution tech companies about potential legal action for failing to comply.
A group of software testers that tested age-assurance software on over 1,000 Australians last year discovered that platforms failed to request age verification on any of the 50 accounts opened after the law was implemented, for which they declared the age as 16, according to reports.
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The newly discovered finding uncovers a mostly neglected issue: although the process has concentrated on the precision of image-based age-verification software, the initial screening phase - which estimates an individual's age bracket based on their overall online behavior - seems to be missing younger users for additional scrutiny.
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"You ought to be required to show your age, yet we have never been requested to confirm our age or employ age-verification methods," stated Andrew Hammond, director at the testing company KJR, which conducted the initial trial in 2025.
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According to Hammond, all 50 test accounts are operational and have been allocated across nine of the 10 platforms affected by age restrictions, which include Meta's Instagram, Snap's Snapchat, TikTok, and Alphabet's YouTube.