Age checks for social media find global support

The sun has now risen twice since Australia cut off access to social media for kids under 16, and so far there have been no reports of spontaneous combustion, screaming withdrawal fits or murderous sacrifices of an entire town’s adults to the corn god. In fact, the response to the law after a few days appears to be cautiously positive – and Australia’s eSafety Commissioner says U.S. parents are telling her they want their own version.

A blog from the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) quotes numbers from Ipsos that show 65 percent of Australian parents support the legislation prohibiting kids under 16 from using social media – and 58 percent of U.S. parents support similar measures.

In contrast, kids don’t love what’s happening. Only 38 percent of Australian children and 36 percent of U.S. kids support social media bans for under-16s. Youth say they fear losing important connections they’ve made over social media. These fears are amplified for marginalized communities.

“For many children, social media can play a meaningful role in their daily lives, offering a place to stay connected, share experiences and feel part of a wider community,” says FOSI. “Losing access to those spaces raises important questions about how young people will continue nurturing the relationships and support system they rely on. This cultural context along with the findings above highlights an emotional dimension of the ban that many parents may underestimate.”

Some teens feel punished by the ban. The case has been made that Australia, which has plenty of remote communities where social interactions are limited, is an especially poor place to cut off digital interactions between young people. Another argument says that if social media is harming kids, someone should hold the platforms accountable, rather than putting restrictions on users – a digital duty of care imposed on the tech giants that have gotten us here.

Then again, some teens have told the media they’re not that bothered, while others are looking for ways to circumvent age checks.

Privately SA looks at split opinions on SM age checks in UK

With the snowball rolling in Australia, more calls for like-minded legislation elsewhere are inevitable. New research released by Privately (which provides age assurance for three of the ten largest social media platforms in Australia) shows that more than half of UK adults would support an under-16 social media ban.

That said, there are shared concerns about what that would mean for kids: 42 percent of respondents say children need to be online to learn, socialize and play. As such, it’s age appropriate experiences people are looking for, rather than a strict system that excludes kids from online life.

Deepak Tewari, CEO of Privately, says the research shows UK parents facing the same dilemma as families worldwide: “they expect platforms to ensure far better protections for children but also want those children to benefit from being online.”

“Blanket bans may be the starting point of the debate, but the real opportunity is for platforms to create safe, curated experiences for younger users without excluding them from digital life.”

Part of the issue is framing. Parents don’t necessarily understand what options the law gives them, if they know about it at all. Privately’s research shows that awareness of the UK’s Online Safety Act, which went into effect in July, remains low: “only half of adults have heard of the legislation, which requires platforms to verify user age.”

That will change with time. But communicating alternatives is also important, since support for safeguards in general is high. One example is facial age estimation. Forty two percent of adults express “general comfort with age-estimation technology,” but lingering privacy concerns based on misinformation hamper enthusiasm.

“What’s needed is privacy-first age assurance that lets platforms know whether a child is using their services without collecting or storing sensitive biometrics or ID information,” Tewari says.  “On-device age estimation now makes this possible. It’s a rights-respecting solution that protects children and their privacy while supporting their digital inclusion.”

We’re more alike than you know: Inman Grant to U.S.

One group that categorically does not like Australia’s social media law is the platforms themselves, many of which have criticized the legislation as an attack on American rights. The current U.S. administration has adopted a similar posture, and a U.S. congressional committee has called on Australian eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant to testify in person.

Inman Grant, an American and former Microsoft executive, has been turned into a convenient villain by Big Tech and its supporters in Washington. Jim Jordan, the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives, has called her a “noted zealot for global takedowns.” But she appears unfazed by the attention, and in an interview with Reuters says she hears from parents in the U.S. who tell her, “we wish we had an e-safety commissioner like you, we wish we had a government that was going to put tween and teen safety before technology profits.”

Inman Grant insists that, when it comes to the U.S. and social media regulations, “there’s more that unites us than divides us.” The eSafety Commissioner notes that “there is no other consumer-facing industry in the world where we don’t expect them to make sure that there are safety standards.”

Frontier era of social media coming to a close

Many U.S. lawmakers do share Inman Grant’s sentiments. According to ABC News, politicians from both sides of the political spectrum are calling for the U.S. to follow Australia in reining in social media companies. As a start, Alabama senator Katie Britt has introduced a bipartisan bill, the Kids Off Social Media Act, to ban Americans under 13 from social media.

“I think when you look at what’s happening right now with our kids, ages 13 to 17, they have said they actually feel more negative, feel more depressed,” Britt says. “Almost 50 per cent of them admit to that after being on social media. Now is the time to act, but the truth is big tech has a grip on Congress and Congress’ inaction is feckless.”

Another voice in support of an Australian-style ban in the U.S. is Rahm Emanuel, former mayor of Chicago and White House chief of staff under Barack Obama. Emanuel is “calling for the United States to follow suit, to come up with its own plan, help protect our children, help our parents, strengthen our families and restrict all the social media when it comes to access to kids and adolescents 16 and younger.”

The largest obstacle standing in the way of a social media law in the U.S. is NetChoice, the Silicon Valley legal lobby tasked with litigating social media age assurance laws at will. It has thus far been successful in using the First Amendment as a cudgel with which to beat online safety legislation into submission.

But there is little doubt that the tide is turning. Brazil has moved to require parental consent for social media accounts held by people under 16. As MLex puts it in an introduction to a suite of articles examining the issue, “for two decades, social media has been a juggernaut rolling forward relentlessly, as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok surged into the billions of users. But the once unthinkable is happening: the brakes are being applied.”

December 10, 2025 may go down in history as the day the world said, this has gone far enough. 

Article Topics

age verification  |  Australia age verification  |  biometric age estimation  |  biometrics  |  children  |  legislation  |  Privately  |  regulation  |  social media  |  United States