Australia was the first in the world when it banned social media for children under 16 back in 2025. We look at how it's played out since and what Canada can learn from their example. From Sydney, Australia. Katrina Champion is an associate professor at the University of Sydney's School of Public Health, and she joins me on the line. Great to have you, Katrina. How are you doing today?

Well, thanks. Thanks for having me. Of course, give us a sense of how Australians have reacted since the ban has been put in place. It's been about five months, but what's the general conversation like? Yes. So it still is early days. We're about five months in to our social media ban here. And I would say certainly before the ban, there was quite wide spread public support, particularly by parents. They were quite eager to have this ban in place, understandably. But there were some people, like myself and other researchers and experts who were a bit sceptical, just curious about how this was all going to play out and how things would be enforced and how it would work on a practical level. So it's been quite interesting to watch and see what's happened.

What I would say since December, what we're seeing is that there have been some action by the the platforms, the tech companies. So our Esafety Commission, which is the independent regulatory body in Australia that is responsible for this social media ban, released a report recently in March 2026. And what that showed us was that about 5 million accounts for people who were under the age of 16 have been removed, restricted or deactivated. And that happened quite quickly. That happened in about mid December. So there was quite this big initial response, I guess, and it sounds quite impressive, but I would just flag that this is accounts, not the number of people. And of course we know that many people hold multiple accounts across the different platforms.

Then in terms of positives, I know that, as you mentioned, still early days, but have we seen some positive outcomes so far from the ban? I mean, I think that in itself is a positive outcome that the the big tech companies are actually doing something. Some of them have been compliant in terms of other positive outcomes. I do think it's a little bit too early to say on a small scale level. We have heard from some parents that their children have decided not to use social media anymore, but by and large, I think it's too early to tell.

And something I think that's important to point out is that a substantial proportion of young Australians under the age of 16 are still on social media. So different research studies. And that same report from the Esafety commissioner tells us that young people actually are continuing to be able to access social media and to have accounts, despite the the legislation.

Well, help us understand what is being done with enforcement. What does that look like for an Australian who's under 16, who is logging into an account? What does that look like? So really the responsibility lies with the platforms, with the tech companies. So it's up to them to not allow under people under the age of 16 to create or have an account on their platform. They are meant to be taking reasonable steps. That's the language in the legislation to prevent people under the age of 16 from holding an account. In terms of who's responsible for monitoring and enforcing that. That comes back to the Esafety commissioner. So an independent regulatory body, and they are monitoring the platforms to make sure that they are taking these reasonable steps. That's where it starts to get a little bit complicated, because it's not a simple kind of one size fits all approach. From my understanding, it's quite context dependent. It's case by case. There needs to be a kind of body of evidence built up over time for them to then be able to enforce that platform. Who then can face fines up to nearly $50 million for non-compliance? Help us understand, is it I know this all depends on on the apps that people are using, but is it them kind of scrolling through sort of an age verification? Is it a photos facial recognition that is sort of at play? What is the actual sort of the nitty gritty on the apps? Yeah. So again, it depends on the app or the platform. It's up to them how they are being compliant. They are using a range of different age verification and age assurance systems to, to stay compliant. But that's where it seems to fall down a little bit. So we know that young people have been very easily able to circumvent these age verification processes. So there's facial recognition software that isn't particularly good. So young people have been able to get around that. And then in terms of ID verification checks, we know that young people have just been using older peers, IDs, their parents even. So, I think a real learning that's come out of that is that the age verification systems are not working very well at all. Fair to say that there isn't much stopping children from, you know, making fake accounts or accessing social media. It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like they can very easily get onto the apps and the platforms that they wanted to. So some young people even said that they, their accounts weren't deactivated, so they had no issues at all. Their accounts weren't blocked at all. And then the others who did face age verification barriers were able to get past them really quickly. Let's talk about on the other side of things, when we talk about privacy concerns, data collection, what has the public reaction been to those concerns? Yeah, I think there's been quite a bit of concern around the privacy issues. And that, again, comes back mainly to the age verification. I think, you know, enforcing this type of ban and, and being able to having to verify someone's age does require sensitive data. So these age assurance processes are really problematic. And there's risks of scams and data breaches. And it's really quite, quite messy, particularly when we're talking about about young people. So I think that there needs to be a bit of a balancing act here between trying to protect our young people from the harms, the potential harms of social media, without creating these new risks about privacy and data misuse and security.

Well, with that being said, what has the ban revealed sort of about the effectiveness effectiveness of a ban like this on the wellbeing of children and social media? So I think in terms of the impact of the ban on wellbeing, that's certainly too early to say. I think for that we need to be collecting data over a much longer period to be able to understand if there are any, any impacts on young people's mental health and wellbeing and also on their other health behaviours, such as their sleep and physical activity, which, you know, arguably are neglected when they're spending so much time on screens. We do know that there is a formal evaluation underway. So the E-safety commissioner has commissioned an evaluation led by researchers at Stanford University. So they're following a group of young people, 10 to 16, about 4000 of them and their parents over two years. And so I think once that data starts to come out later this year, I think it's expected we'll start to be able to have a bit of a better idea. On whether the the ban has had an impact on young people's health and wellbeing.

As you know, all eyes have been on Australia in terms of looking at it from the from our side here in Canada. But a number of countries as to how Australia was going to do this, and I am curious, as we mentioned, still early days, but what lessons can Canada learn from Australia when it comes to this ban? Yeah, I think, again, I think we need to treat our test case here in Australia as a bit of a longer term experiment. Experiment. So I would, you know, say be a bit cautious, watch and wait wait for some more data to come out, which should be coming out later this year. There's lots and lots of research, including my own research at our centre at the University of Sydney that will be coming out over time, so we'll have a better picture then. In the meantime, I would say focus on digital literacy education for parents and teens, making sure that they have the best possible knowledge to to navigate online spaces safely, and also wanting to point out that even this one of the biggest criticisms of the ban is that limiting access and, and stopping young people from having accounts doesn't automatically make social media safer. It doesn't take away some of those harmful aspects. It doesn't reduce the actual content. It doesn't reduce the design features on the platforms and on the apps so that the algorithms, the endless scrolling. So I think I would also say that push push back against the big tech to make them put the responsibility back on the platforms to make them make changes as well as, as well as these bans. Katrina. We are going to leave it there, but I really appreciate your time to chat about Australia's social media ban so far. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.