More than eight in ten Australian children under 16 continue to use social media despite the country's world-first ban on underage access, according to a study released by Australia's internet regulator eSafety. The findings, drawn from a survey conducted roughly three months after the ban took effect, show that platform-level age checks have failed to meaningfully reduce underage access and that usage patterns have barely shifted.

Australia's ban on social media for children under 16 took effect on December 10, 2025, making the country the first in the world to prohibit minors below that age from using social media platforms (Al Jazeera). The legislation, introduced over concerns about the impact of social media on children's mental and physical health, targets ten of the largest platforms with fines of up to AUD $33 million for failing to take reasonable steps to block users younger than 16 (Reuters). Video game platforms are exempt from the ban.

The eSafety study found that prior to the ban, nearly 86 percent of surveyed Australian children used at least one age-restricted platform. Three months later, that figure remained above 81 percent. Daily usage dropped marginally, from roughly 60 percent before the ban to about 58 percent after. Most children aged 10 to 15 were using social media just as frequently in March 2026 as they had been before the law took effect (Al Jazeera).

A separate study of 408 adolescents, reported by Reuters in June, found that 85 percent of Australians aged 12 to 15 were still on social media three months after the ban (Reuters). The convergence of these datasets points to a consistent picture: the ban has not produced the behavioral change its architects intended.

eSafety attributed the persistent underage access primarily to platforms' failure to implement effective age-assurance measures. About half of the children who retained their accounts after the ban said platforms had not checked their age at all (Al Jazeera). The regulator has also warned that individuals offering to provide minors with fake IDs or access to age-verified accounts are likely running scams, advising against payment or sharing intimate images (eSafety).

There are structural reasons enforcement has lagged. Under Australia's social media age restrictions, no penalties apply to under-16s who access age-restricted platforms, nor to their parents or carers (eSafety). The enforcement burden falls entirely on platforms. As of January 16, social media companies had revoked access to approximately 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to Australian children (Al Jazeera). That figure, while substantial, evidently did not translate into durable exclusion, given that usage rates remained effectively unchanged by March.

The Australian government has defended the ban publicly since the eSafety findings emerged (Reuters). Officials have framed the policy as a long-term intervention whose effects will compound as platforms refine their age-assurance technologies and enforcement mechanisms mature. Government-commissioned research predating the ban, led by former National Australia Bank CEO Andrew Thorburn in 2023, found that four out of five children aged eight to 16 used social media, establishing the baseline that motivated the legislation (Al Jazeera). eSafety's own national survey has separately documented that most Australian children aged 8 to 12 have used social media or messaging services (eSafety).

The broader context here is a regulatory experiment being watched closely by governments worldwide. Australia's law is the most aggressive legislative intervention to date in a contested policy domain: whether age-gating social media through statutory prohibition can effectively reduce harm to minors, or whether it simply pushes access into less visible channels. The eSafety data suggests the latter outcome is at minimum a coexisting reality. Usage has not collapsed; it has barely dipped. The 4.7 million account revocations indicate that platforms are taking some action, but the minimal decline in actual usage rates implies that children are returning through new accounts, circumvented age checks, or both.

The design choice to penalize platforms rather than families creates a particular enforcement structure. Platforms face a $33 million incentive to comply, but the technical challenge of reliably verifying age at scale without intrusive identity checks remains unresolved. Facial-estimation tools, document-based verification, and age-inference technologies all carry trade-offs in accuracy, privacy, and cost. Half of retained accounts faced no age check at all, which suggests that at least some platforms have not yet deployed even baseline age-assurance infrastructure across their Australian user base.

For policymakers in other jurisdictions considering similar measures, Australia's experience so far offers a cautionary data point: a legislated ban without matching technical enforcement capacity produces, at best, a marginal reduction in access and, at worst, a false sense of regulatory accomplishment. The question that will determine the ban's legacy is whether the $33 million penalty threat can push platforms to invest in age-assurance systems robust enough to close the gap between legal prohibition and actual access. Eight months in, that gap remains wide.