MELBOURNE, FL, Nov. 2, 2026 —
Australia now requires age-restricted social media platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent anyone under 16 from creating or keeping an account, according to Australia's eSafety Commissioner. The rule took effect Dec. 10, 2025.
eSafety says it considers Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, YouTube, Kick and Reddit to be age-restricted platforms, among others, and that the list may change. Online gaming and standalone messaging apps are among the services excluded under the rules, the regulator says.
Who gets penalized
The penalties fall on the companies, not on kids or parents. eSafety says there are no penalties for under-16s who use an age-restricted platform, or for their parents or carers. A court can order a platform that hasn't taken reasonable steps to pay civil penalties of up to 300,000 penalty units, which eSafety says currently equals $109.2 million AUD.
The regulator calls it "a delay to having accounts," not a ban.
What has happened so far
Major social media companies removed access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children under 16 in the first half of December 2025, according to eSafety's Jan. 16, 2026, release. eSafety described them as initial figures.
"I am very pleased with these preliminary results," eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in the release. She also acknowledged reports that some under-16 accounts remain active and said it was too early to determine whether platforms were fully complying.
eSafety published a compliance update on March 31, 2026, and on Sept. 10, 2026, Australia's Parliament passed a bill expanding the regulator's information-gathering powers and raising maximum civil penalties, according to eSafety's timeline. The law requires the government to start an independent review within two years of Dec. 10, 2025.
How the U.S. rule differs
The main federal U.S. rule on children's online data, the Federal Trade Commission's Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA), defines a child as someone under the age of 13. COPPA governs how companies collect personal information from children, such as names, contact details and persistent identifiers.
What U.S. teens use
In the U.S., 21% of teens ages 13 to 17 say they're on TikTok "almost constantly" and about one in five say the same of YouTube, according to a Pew Research Center survey of 1,458 teens conducted Sept. 25 to Oct. 9, 2025.
Those are the facts, directly from the source.
Sources: eSafety Commissioner, "Social media age restrictions" (last updated Sept. 30, 2026); eSafety media release (Jan. 16, 2026); 16 CFR 312.2 (eCFR); Pew Research Center (Dec. 9, 2025).
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