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title: Australia’s under-16 social media ban stumbles at the...
description: Australia's law banning under-16s from social media, which took effect in December 2025, is failing at the most basic enforcement step. Testers from KJR, the...
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og:description: Australia's law banning under-16s from social media, which took effect in December 2025, is failing at the most basic enforcement step. Testers from KJR, the...
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# Australia’s under-16 social media ban stumbles at the first age check, testers find

**[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 4 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments

## Summary

Australia's law banning under-16s from social media, which took effect in December 2025, is failing at the most basic enforcement step. Testers from KJR, the firm that ran the government's original age-assurance trial, opened 50 accounts across nine of the ten covered platforms by simply declaring an age of 16 — and not one platform asked for proof. Only Kick refused to create an account without age verification. A separate study found over 85% of 12-to-15-year-olds were still using social media three months after the ban, mostly by claiming to be older. Platforms face fines up to A$54.6m for systemic failures, but proposed legislation to expand regulator powers stalled in the Senate. The findings are being watched closely by the EU, UK, and Norway, which are considering similar restrictions.

## Full article

daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: <https://thenextweb.com/news/australia-teen-social-media-ban-age-check-study>

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---

Tags: [#privacy](https://daily.dev/tags/privacy), [#social-media](https://daily.dev/tags/social-media)

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