--- title: "Australia's child social media ban is failing. The Senate delayed the fix." url: https://daily.dev/posts/australia-s-child-social-media-ban-is-failing-the-senate-delayed-the-fix--dhuulehz3 source_url: https://thenextweb.com/news/australia-social-media-ban-children-senate-delay type: article source: "The Next Web" published: 2026-07-04T17:42:13.411Z updated: 2026-07-04T17:42:33.661Z tags: ["social-media"] reading_time: 4 upvotes: 0 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Australia's child social media ban is failing. The Senate delayed the fix. **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Australia's world-first social media ban for children under 16, which took effect in December, is struggling with enforcement. Seven in 10 children who had accounts on restricted platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok when the ban began are still active, mostly by declaring a false age or passing selfie-based verification. Amendments that would have expanded the eSafety Commissioner's powers to compel internal documents and double maximum fines to A$99 million were blocked by the Senate, which referred the bill to an eight-week inquiry. Prime Minister Albanese warned the delay gives platforms time to destroy evidence. The UK, France, Denmark, and Spain are pursuing similar bans, but Australia's experience highlights the core challenge: passing legislation is easy; enforcing it against platforms and building effective, privacy-respecting age verification systems is not. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Australia’s teen social media ban works on paper, less so in practice](https://daily.dev/posts/australia-s-teen-social-media-ban-works-on-paper-less-so-in-practice-o8f0mey6y) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Australia’s under-16 social media ban stumbles at the first age check, testers find](https://daily.dev/posts/australia-s-under-16-social-media-ban-stumbles-at-the-first-age-check-testers-find-ny0c7nejo) · The Next Web · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [World’s first teen social media ban is failing](https://daily.dev/posts/world-s-first-teen-social-media-ban-is-failing-tg5icr5sr) · TechCentral · 22 upvotes · 7 comments - [These are the countries moving to ban social media for children](https://daily.dev/posts/these-are-the-countries-moving-to-ban-social-media-for-children-5xd0ebpq1) · TechCrunch · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#social-media](https://daily.dev/tags/social-media) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/australia-s-child-social-media-ban-is-failing-the-senate-delayed-the-fix--dhuulehz3)