Australia's landmark legislation restricting social media access for under-16s has proven unexpectedly ineffective in its opening months, according to research from the University of Newcastle that casts doubt on the sweeping policy reforms now being emulated across multiple countries. The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, which took effect in December 2025, represented a global first in legislating a blanket age prohibition, yet preliminary findings suggest the measure has struggled to translate regulatory intent into meaningful behavioural change among teenagers.
The research team at Newcastle conducted a rigorous longitudinal study monitoring 408 adolescents aged 12 to 17 in the months before and after the legislation's implementation. Their findings, published in the British Medical Journal, paint a picture of widespread policy circumvention that raises fundamental questions about whether legislative approaches alone can effectively regulate teen technology use. More than 85 per cent of under-16s in the study cohort continued accessing the restricted platforms—including TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat—often through multiple pathways that deliberately evaded the legislative intent.
The legislation had positioned major social media companies as gatekeepers, requiring them to implement reasonable age verification measures. The Newcastle analysis revealed that approximately two-thirds of adolescents encountered some form of age checking, typically involving self-declared age verification or photo-based identification systems. Yet the relative ease with which teenagers bypassed these safeguards underscores a critical vulnerability: reliance on user honesty and platform enforcement without robust identity verification infrastructure creates what amounts to an honour system with minimal real-world consequences for violation.
Lead investigator Courtney Barnes, a public health researcher at Newcastle, highlighted that the workarounds were both diverse and prevalent across the study population. Around 15 to 19 per cent of adolescents reported creating fake accounts specifically to regain access to prohibited platforms, while between 9 and 29 per cent accessed services through accounts belonging to friends or family members—a practice that transforms the restriction into an easily circumvented shared-account arrangement. Additionally, up to 11 per cent employed private browsing modes to bypass technical restrictions, demonstrating a level of digital sophistication among teenagers that policy-makers may have underestimated.
Perhaps most tellingly, the legislation produced minimal measurable change in actual usage patterns. Among 12 and 13-year-olds, daily social media consumption remained essentially flat, neither declining nor increasing substantially after the restriction took effect. Usage among 14 to 15-year-olds registered only marginal decreases, while teenagers aged 16 and over—the permitted demographic—actually increased their platform engagement. This stagnation suggests that teenagers determined to maintain their social media presence found workarounds sufficiently accessible that behaviour modification never materialised, and those within the legal age range increased consumption without restriction.
The Newcastle study has assumed particular significance because Australia's experiment is being scrutinised internationally as a potential policy model. Several nations including Britain, France, Spain, Greece, Norway and Türkiye have already initiated legislative movements toward comparable restrictions, essentially using Australia as a test case. The early findings have potential implications for these emerging initiatives, suggesting that legislative frameworks without more sophisticated enforcement mechanisms may deliver limited practical outcomes despite their high political visibility and public support.
Behavioural scientist Professor Luke Wolfenden, a co-author of the research, emphasised that the legislation's ultimate effectiveness will hinge substantially on the consistency and robustness of enforcement over extended periods. Age assurance systems require not merely that they exist, but that they function reliably and that platforms maintain serious commitment to compliance over time—conditions that the Newcastle data suggest have not yet materialised at scale. The current landscape, characterised by modest verification hurdles easily circumvented through multiple alternative pathways, creates an environment where compliance is optional for motivated teenagers rather than mandatory.
The researchers acknowledge an important methodological caveat: the evaluation period of just three months represents only an initial snapshot of policy implementation. Legislative changes frequently require longer adaptation periods before their full effects become apparent, as behaviour shifts gradually and compliance mechanisms mature. Both the platforms implementing verification systems and teenagers developing counter-strategies are still in relatively early stages of adjustment. The Newcastle team has committed to longer-term monitoring, recognising that drawing definitive conclusions about policy success or failure would be premature based on initial data.
For Southeast Asian observers, the Australian case offers instructive lessons about the complexities of regulating adolescent technology use through legislative action alone. Malaysia and other regional nations considering comparable restrictions would benefit from acknowledging that legislation constitutes only one component of effective policy, and that regulatory frameworks without supporting infrastructure for identity verification and platform accountability often achieve symbolic rather than substantive outcomes. The Australian experience suggests that meaningful age-based restrictions require not merely legal mandates but sophisticated technical implementation, consistent platform enforcement, and realistic assessment of teenagers' capacity for digital circumvention.
The broader policy question emerging from this research concerns whether age-based prohibitions represent the most effective regulatory approach, or whether alternative frameworks focused on safety features, parental oversight tools, and platform accountability for content and algorithmic presentation might achieve better results than wholesale access restrictions. Australia's pioneering legislation, despite its global prominence, appears to have revealed the limitations of one particular regulatory approach rather than demonstrating its viability, suggesting that countries now considering similar laws should carefully evaluate whether the Australian model truly addresses their underlying concerns about adolescent social media safety or simply creates an illusion of action without meaningful protective effect.
