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| Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (C) as he speaks during an official function to mark the start of Australia's social media reform at Kirrilbilli House in Sydney on December 10, 2025. |
In a groundbreaking move, Australia has banned millions of teenagers from using Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. Parents are happy. Tech companies are concerned. But experts caution that the ban might cause more problems than it solves, and they are worried about the consequences this summer.
Wayne Holdsworth should not have been at the Prime Minister's residence on Wednesday. His 17-year-old son Mac should still be alive. But Mac took his own life after falling victim to a sexual extortion scam on social media. Now, his father stood among grieving parents at a gathering marking Australia's unique ban on social media for those under 16.
"It's really sad. I shouldn't be here because he should have been protected," Holdsworth told CNN. "I should have known more. He should have known more."
His words reflect the hope and fear driving Australia's bold approach to digital parenting. As of Wednesday, 10 major platforms, including Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, began suspending or deleting accounts for users under 16, with significant fines threatened for companies that do not take appropriate action to enforce the ban.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calls it Australia taking the lead. Critics, however, describe it as overblown. As teenagers find out whether they’ve been locked out or still have access, one big question remains: Did Australia solve a crisis, or just make it worse?
The Book That Changed Everything
The story of how Australia became the first country to ban social media for under-16s starts with a bedtime story.
Last April, the wife of South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas read "The Anxious Generation," a book by American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt published in March 2024. Each night, she summarized its contents for her husband.
"I will never forget one night, she finished the book, turned to me and said, 'You better do something about this,'" Malinauskas recalled at the gathering in Sydney.
So he did. Malinauskas asked for a draft law on possible solutions in South Australia. The idea spread to nearby New South Wales and escalated to the federal level, supported by parents like Holdsworth whose children faced bullying, extortion, or suicide linked to social media.
Haidt's main argument is bold: parents have overprotected children in real life but failed to keep them safe online. Kids are shielded from playground injuries that build resilience but are exposed to predators, cyberbullying, and content designed to maximize engagement and anxiety.
Within months, this idea became law in Australia.
Wednesday: The Rollout Nobody Could Predict
The government knew the rollout would be chaotic. What they didn’t expect was how chaotic it would be.
As the ban took effect, some children found themselves suddenly locked out of accounts they had held for years. Others logged in happily to find their accounts untouched. This inconsistency shows the challenges of age verification and the different responses of platforms facing possible fines for non-compliance.
Officials insist platforms must keep monitoring users and remove anyone under 16 "for as long as needed," recognizing that this is an ongoing process, not a one-time cleanup.
Prime Minister Albanese defended the confusion, viewing it as necessary growing pains for groundbreaking legislation.
"This is Australia leading the world. This is Australia responding to what is a global issue," he told CNN. "We know that social harm is being caused, and therefore we have a responsibility to answer parents' pleas and respond to young people saying, just let us be kids."
On the eve of the ban, Albanese sent a video message to Australian teenagers, encouraging them to "start a new sport, learn a new instrument, or read that book that has been sitting there on your shelf for some time."
This message resonated with parents alarmed by research showing excessive screen time, especially scrolling through curated feeds, increases anxiety and can have serious long-term mental health effects.
But not everyone believes the ban will help.
"Massively Overhyped": Why Experts Are Skeptical
Professor Tama Leaver from Curtin University in Perth is direct about Australia’s bold experiment.
"It has been massively overhyped," he told media outlets. "It is world-leading, but it's also world-leading because many recognize that the tools to do this don't really work yet."
His doubts focus on several key issues the ban does not address:
Bullying will simply continue elsewhere. Cyberbullying isn't specific to one platform; it’s a societal issue. Leaver warns that bullies will just move to different sites, possibly to smaller platforms that offer even less protection than the major ones that invest heavily in safety features for kids.
Vulnerable children may lose their support networks. Experts working with isolated or at-risk youth warn that cutting off social media access could sever important connections. For LGBTQ+ teens in conservative areas, children from abusive homes, or those with mental health issues, online communities often provide support they can't find from others. This ban risks making them feel even more alone.
The government hasn’t set success metrics. "Because the government has not established goals or defined success, it's tough to know if the ban has worked," Leaver explained. Without clear measures, how will Australia tell if the experiment has succeeded?
Privacy and surveillance concerns. Critics argue the ban threatens privacy and free speech, noting that monitoring online activity can lead to tighter government surveillance. Australia's High Court will review arguments about how the ban affects young people's freedoms to participate in political discussions.
Leaver's most alarming concern is: "I think if we get every young person through summer without a tragic incident, we’ve done okay."
That's the bar for success—hoping that no one dies this summer because they lost online support or sought riskier corners of the internet.
Where Teenagers Go Next
Teenagers affected by the ban are already finding ways around it, moving to smaller platforms with fewer protections than those provided by major tech companies.
This shift to less regulated spaces could expose young people to greater risks than the mainstream platforms they’ve been banned from, which is both ironic and potentially harmful.
Australia's eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who grew up in Seattle, has suggested that the list of banned sites will expand as teenagers find workarounds. The sites on the list will be closely monitored starting immediately.
"Tomorrow, I will issue information notices to 10 major platforms, and we will inform the public by Christmas about how these age restrictions are being implemented, and if we see them working," she stated on Wednesday.
Yet monitoring and enforcement face challenges that have troubled other nations. Age verification online is notoriously difficult. Children can lie. VPNs can hide locations. Creating accounts with false birthdates takes just seconds.
The Parents' Dilemma: False Security?
For parents like Holdsworth, who lost children to social media-related tragedies, the ban feels like long-awaited action. Even he understands it's only part of the answer.
"We've got the chance now to teach kids aged eight to 15, so when they get access to social media, they're ready," Holdsworth told CNN. Of his son Mac, he added, "He would be looking down today very proud, proud to be an Australian, proud to be my son."
But Leaver and other experts worry the ban gives parents a false sense of security—the dangerous belief that their kids are now "safe" just because major platforms have banned them.
The truth is more complicated. Some parents contribute to the problem—abusive or neglectful, pushing children to seek support online. For those kids, Leaver worries about what happens when they lack a trusted adult during this critical time and lose their online connections.
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Could This Be Australia's Gun Laws Moment?
The Australian government thinks this law could set a global standard, just as gun laws did in the 1990s.
After the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania left 35 dead, Australia imposed strict new restrictions and vowed "never again." Shootings aren't completely gone, but firearms are rare in Australia, and mass shootings in the US constantly remind us why those laws are crucial.
Commissioner Inman Grant speaks of the social media ban in similar terms—as possibly the first real solution to what some see as a vast social media experiment on young people without their informed consent.
"The world will follow as nations once followed our lead on plain tobacco packaging, gun reform, water, and sun safety," she said. "How could anyone not follow a country that clearly prioritizes teen safety over tech profits?"
She added confidently, "Australia stands as a global change-maker firmly on the right side of history."
The United Kingdom and France are already making it more difficult for children to access inappropriate content. European Union countries and others are watching Australia's experiment closely to see if they will follow suit.
Discussions at dinner tables in Australia aren't much different from those in the US, UK, and beyond—evidenced by the worldwide popularity of Haidt's book.
The Freedom vs. Safety Debate
However, not everyone believes Australia is on "the right side of history."
Critics argue the ban violates young people's rights to free speech and access to information. Australia's High Court will hear arguments on whether preventing teenagers from participating in political discussions online harms fundamental freedoms.
Some platforms may even take legal action against the ban, claiming it's impractical, ineffective, or unconstitutional.
This debate reflects a broader tension in democratic societies: How much freedom should we sacrifice for safety? Who decides what is appropriate for young people? And when does protecting them turn into overprotection that stifles growth instead of fostering it?
Haidt's book claimed modern parents have got it backward—overprotecting in real life while failing to safeguard online. However, critics of the ban argue it merely flips the issue, possibly overprotecting online while denying young people the digital skills they will need as adults.
What Success Looks Like—If Anyone Knows
Inman Grant painted an optimistic view of what’s ahead: "A few things are certain. Parents will receive support, families can reconnect, and technology tethers will loosen."
But the certainty she projects contrasts sharply with the uncertainty expressed by experts like Leaver, who point out that without clear success metrics, it’s impossible to judge whether the ban achieves its objectives.
Will success be defined by lower teen anxiety? Fewer suicides? Reduced cyberbullying? Better school performance? Stronger family relationships? And how can we determine causation versus correlation?
If teenage anxiety remains high—which seems likely since social media is just one out of many contributing factors—will that be seen as a failure? Or will supporters argue that things would have been worse without the ban?
The absence of clear metrics makes this experiment both groundbreaking and questionable from a scientific perspective.
The Summer Test
As Australian teenagers head into summer break, all eyes are on them. Will disconnected teens engage in healthier activities, as Albanese hopes? Will they turn to riskier platforms? Will vulnerable young people fall through the cracks?
Leaver's hope that Australia gets "through summer without a tragic incident" establishes a troublingly low bar—yet it may be the most realistic measure of short-term success.
If a teenager who lost access to an online support group takes their life or if children who move to unmonitored platforms encounter predators, critics will highlight those tragedies as signs that the ban caused more harm than good.
If no major incidents occur, supporters will claim victory—but critics will argue that the absence of evidence isn't proof of success.
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| Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during an official function to mark the start of Australia's social media reform at Kirrilbilli House in Sydney on December 10, 2025. |
A Father's Hope
For Wayne Holdsworth, standing in the Prime Minister's residence on Wednesday, none of the academic debates or policy uncertainty matter as much as the fact that action has been taken.
His son Mac won't benefit from the ban. But perhaps other children will be protected in ways Mac wasn't.
"It's really sad. I shouldn't be here because he should have been protected," he said. "I should have known more. He should have known more."
That lack of knowledge, by parents, children, and schools, is what Holdsworth now wants to address. The ban, in his view, buys time for education. Eight-year-olds today have eight years to learn about online risks before they turn 16 and gain legal access to social media.
Whether that education happens, whether the ban holds, and whether it actually protects vulnerable young people or simply pushes them to darker corners of the internet are the questions that will determine whether Australia really did lead the world or just conducted a "massively overhyped" experiment that other countries wisely avoided.
For now, Australia has eased some of its worries about teens on social media. Whether that relief is justified or just a dangerous illusion is something the world will be watching closely in the months ahead.
Follow ZOSIO for updates on Australia's social media ban and its global implications for tech regulation and child safety.