Australia has officially pulled the plug on underage access to social media, effectively yelling “get off my lawn!” to every kid below the age of 16. As of yesterday, these children won’t be able to keep or make accounts on social media apps.
At LiveCraft, our team is here to help brands and creators navigate what this means for their business. These restrictions may reshape where and how brands operate, and in some cases, it may even make more sense to activate outside Australia to gain access to TikTok Shop and maintain a sustainable audience.
Wherever your brand fits, we can help you get set up seamlessly.
But first, let’s break down the new ban and how it impacts users, creators, and brands.
What apps and sites are affected?
At the time of writing, the ban only explicitly calls out 10 specific age-restricted social media apps and websites, out of a sea of tens of thousands. The platforms in question are:
However, it is also written that eSafety does not have a formal role in declaring which services are age-restricted social media platforms, and it’s ultimately up to the court to decide which platforms or services fall under the ban.
The full impact is still unfolding, but creators are already bracing for declines in views, engagement, and monetization across every platform. And once TikTok Shop officially launches in the region, a key slice of the consumer base will be missing entirely.
With under-16 users removed from the funnel, brands and advertisers will likely shift spend and creator partnerships to markets where that audience is accessible, opening the door for cross-border collaborations and creators outside Australia to pick up the demand.
As for how these platforms are meant to enforce the new law? That’s a little bit up in the air, as the law only states that platforms must take “reasonable steps” to keep underage users from creating or maintaining an account; and moreover, if these users bypass the ban, it’s not even a fineable offense.
All that a platform needs to do is either:
In other words, companies don't actually need to be certain of a user’s date of birth. There's no need to "verify" age; the platform only has to make a well-informed guess.
Over the past couple of weeks, platforms had already begun offering users various ways to verify their ages. In the case of Meta, the company is expected to use AI analysis of user behavior to flag potential underage users, offering an appeals process involving uploading government IDs or “video selfies” in case of false flags. Snapchat is partnering with third-party service providers ConnectID and k-ID to outsource the identification process.
One of the more interesting processes was put in effect by aussie.zone, a community on the popular, federated alternative to Reddit, Lemmy. Their community managers are asking users to DM a chatbot named “Molly” with a message containing some kind of proof they’re over 16 years old, but explicitly not asking for government ID. Some suggestions put forth include:
Some users have responded with 80s/90s references, screenshots of their account ages or creation dates on other platforms, and even photos of their own balding heads.
However, one day into this new era of social media gatekeeping, and we’re already seeing cracks in the system. Parents are reporting their children still having access to the social networks they’ve been lurking on, with some of them bypassing the age checks by simply scrunching up their faces and others never having been flagged as underage in the first place.
Since bypassing the ban is not considered an offense, it remains to be seen how the platforms in question will address these gaps or even if they will make attempts to do so at all.
The Australia teen social media ban is definitely still a developing story and, on a deeper level, a fascinating social experiment. Agencies like LiveCraft are keeping a finger on the pulse of this moment in history, and navigating the challenges it presents.
While TikTok Shop has yet to launch in Australia, ban or no ban, we'll be ready to jump into it as soon as the floodgates open. If you’re interested, get in touch with us today.