Australia restricts YouTube use for children under 16

Starting in December, children in Australia under the age of 16 will no longer be allowed to create YouTube accounts. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that YouTube will be among the social media platforms that must verify that account holders are at least 16 years old.

In November 2024, Australia’s House of Representatives approved a bill banning the use of social media under the age of 16. Children under this age are no longer allowed to create accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and X.

The goal of the ban is to combat both the mental and physical effects that social media platforms have been demonstrated to cause in young children, such as social isolation, sleep interference, addictive behaviors, and low life satisfaction.

“I want to see kids off their devices and onto the footy fields and the swimming pools and the tennis courts. We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know that social media is causing social harm,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at the time.

On Wednesday, Minister for Communications Anika Wells released rules that decide which online services are defined as “age-restricted social media platforms” and which are not. YouTube had previously been exempted from the ban, but has now been added to the list of social media platforms that will have to verify the age of account holders.

“The evidence cannot be ignored that four out of ten Australian kids report that their most recent harm was on YouTube. We will not be intimidated by legal threats when this is a genuine fight for the wellbeing of Australian kids,” Wells told reporters of the Associated Press, referring to a government study.

A YouTube spokesperson said the government’s decision “reverses a clear, public commitment to exclude YouTube from this ban.”

“We share the government’s goal of addressing and reducing online harms. Our position remains clear: YouTube is a video sharing platform with a library of free, high-quality content, increasingly viewed on TV screens. It’s not social media. We will consider next steps and will continue to engage with the government,” he added.

The ban on social media for minors is being closely monitored elsewhere in the world. Norway is also considering a social media ban for those under 15. France and Denmark are more in favor of an EU-wide regulation. The United Kingdom is still considering a ban.