YouTube will follow Australia’s new rule that stops children under 16 from having social media accounts. The change lands just days before the law starts on 10 December 2025 and closes one of the biggest gaps in the country’s online safety push.
What Australia’s teen social media ban does
Australia passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 to stop kids under 16 from holding accounts on major social platforms. The law says platforms must take “reasonable steps” to block new under‑16 accounts and shut existing ones or face heavy fines that can reach tens of millions of Australian dollars.
The rules kick in on 10 December 2025 after a year‑long lead‑in and industry trials on age‑checking tools. The goal is to cut exposure to bullying, grooming, violent clips, and other harmful content that regulators say many Australian teens report seeing online.
Why YouTube first got an exemption
When the government first mapped out the ban, YouTube sat outside the list of “age‑restricted social media platforms.” Google argued the service was mainly built for watching and learning, not for social networking, and pushed for it to be treated differently to apps like Instagram or TikTok.
That carve‑out triggered backlash from child‑safety officials and rival platforms that were already preparing big changes. The eSafety Commissioner also pointed to reports that a large share of Australian teens had seen harmful material on YouTube, saying the exclusion undercut the spirit of the law.
How YouTube will change for under‑16 users
After months of pressure, the government reversed course and formally pulled YouTube into the ban during 2025. Now, with enforcement only days away, YouTube says it will comply even though it still argues it is “different” from classic social media apps.
From 10 December, Australian users that YouTube identifies as under 16 will be automatically logged out of their accounts. Those teens will still be able to watch videos without signing in, but they will lose core account features such as:
- Subscribing to channels and managing feeds.
- Liking or disliking clips and posting comments.
- Uploading videos or going live as young creators.
In messages sent to parents and carers, the company has warned that many existing parental control tools only work when a child is signed in, so some settings will no longer apply once accounts are closed.
Other social platforms already on board
YouTube’s shift means almost every major app popular with teenagers is now publicly committed to following the under‑16 ban. Meta has said Facebook and Instagram will block new teen accounts in Australia and begin disabling current profiles that belong to users below the minimum age.
TikTok and Snapchat have also promised to obey the new rules and are preparing prompts that ask affected users to download their data or accept losing their accounts. Among the big names on Canberra’s list, only X (formerly Twitter) and Reddit have not clearly said they will comply, raising the risk of future enforcement fights.
Concerns about age checks and young creators
Even with broad platform support, there are big questions about how these bans will actually work. A government‑backed trial of age‑verification technology found current tools, including face analysis systems, are still far from perfect and can misjudge users’ ages.
Lawmakers have ruled out mass collection of IDs or other sensitive records just to prove age, which limits what platforms can do. That leaves services like YouTube leaning on a mix of self‑reported dates of birth, behaviour signals, and machine‑learning risk scores, none of which fully stops determined teens from lying.
The move also hits a large community of young Australian creators who built channels, fan bases, and side incomes while still in school. Under the new rules, those under‑16 creators will not be able to log in or upload videos until they reach the minimum age, unless parents move their work to adult‑managed accounts or other platforms that sit outside the ban.
What this move means for parents and platforms
For parents, the law does not remove the need for basic digital‑safety habits at home, but it does change the default setting for big tech platforms. Instead of asking families to opt out of risky apps, Canberra is now forcing companies to keep under‑16s off their services unless they can prove otherwise.
For platforms, YouTube’s decision signals that challenging the law in court may be less attractive than adapting products and policies ahead of enforcement. The broader test will be whether these changes reduce the harms seen in Australian teens’ online lives without simply pushing them to smaller, less regulated apps at the edges of the social web.
