What arе the most dangerous things in the world? Viruses, highways, processed foods, Australian spiders? And what is danger, really? Regardless of how we define it, there must be clear risks and measurable harm. 

Somehow social media platforms are not showing up on any list of the most dangerous things, although even antibacterial soap and apathy have had such an honour. Why, then, did the Australian government prohibit having a social media account for those younger than 16? 

Let’s uncover potential causes.

1. The Australian economy.

   Australia’s GDP per capita still hasn’t managed to return to its 2012–2013 levels. If social media platforms fail to determine the age of Australian users  quickly and reliably, they risk losing AUD 50 million (about USD 33 million) to the state budget. Not much — but still nice.

2. The age-verification lobby. 

   Although social media platforms have already kicked out hundreds of thousands of teenagers whose age was clearly under 16, many borderline cases remain. The fate of these users will be decided by third-party age-verification services. Snapchat and Twitch work with Singapore-based k-ID, Reddit — with the US-based Persona, TikTok — with UK-based Yoti. Yoti, one of the most popular age-verification providers, charged between $0.17 and $0.42 per verification from mid-April to mid-May 2025, depending on the verification method.

3. The data brokers lobby.

   How do you verify a user’s age? Obviously, by checking documents. Accepted methods include government IDs, video selfies, bank cards, and so on. A treasure trove of highly sensitive personal data will end up not only in the hands of large corporations — which, despite massive cybersecurity budgets, still suffer data breaches — but also with contractors performing the verification. These contractors are responsible for roughly a third of major breaches affecting large companies.

   An additional risk factor is the freezing of accounts belonging to children aged 13 to 15, allowing them to regain access once they turn 16. It remains unclear how these cryogenic chambers for accounts will be secured — and who, besides the rightful owners, might gain access during reactivation.

4. Mass surveillance.

   This country has long kept online communications by the balls. TOLA — the Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment — obliges platforms to cooperate with law enforcement by enabling decryption and data access. Platforms themselves, even with the best intentions, cannot read end-to-end encrypted messages, but that’s fine — there’s always Pegasus.

   Previously, young users could at least keep some of their personal data to themselves. Now social media platforms are required to collect significantly more personal and sensitive information — including biometric data — simply to grant access to an account.

   According to lawmakers, “good” age-verification methods include linguistic analysis, device language and time settings, facial and voice age estimation, membership in youth-focused groups, and more. Meanwhile, interconnected infrastructures of personal data sources are far too tempting to be used solely for granting access to social media.

5. Hatred toward the citizens.

   In reality, it’s hard to believe the authorities don’t understand that if teenagers stop spending time on social media, they won’t suddenly start reading books — they’ll start hanging out on the streets. Cyberbullying, child abuse, and addictions will simply move from online to offline. Teenagers will once again learn what is “normal” for their age not from social media, but from the alleyway. Youth crime rates had been declining since the early 2000s, and one of the reasons was spending less uncontrolled time with peers. What happens now? The government seems determined to run a harsh experiment in turning back the clock.

How authorities tried to hide the real reasons

To mislead the public, the government claimed that the social media ban would help protect the mental health of children. Actually, it doesn't even call it “ban”, shyly replacing the term with “delay in having accounts". Officials cite examples such as the pressure to respond to streams of notifications and alerts, as well as the fear of “missing out.” Australian academics and civil society organisations published an open letter to the Prime Minister, urging the government to regulate digital platform safety standards instead of imposing a blanket ban. Most of their criticism focuses on the ineffectiveness of age-assurance techniques and the risks to privacy.

The Australian Psychological Society sounds the alarm, stating that “more than four in 10 Australian teens now suffer mental health distress, with experts drawing a link between the rise in cases and the use of social media.” In particular, the rise in mental distress coincides with the rise of smartphones and iPhones (a correlation reminiscent of the disappearance of pirates and the onset of global warming).

Of course, no one disputes that teenagers — especially girls — place great importance on the number of likes under their posts. But how severe is the actual impact on their mental health?

At the same time, 15-year-old Australians spend less leisure time on digital devices than their peers in other OECD countries, while their level of digital literacy — at least knowledge of how to protect data and privacy — is among the highest.

Perhaps the ban will spare children the anxiety of responding to notifications, and algorithms will no longer target them with content and advertising. But what about young influencers who earned income from their social media accounts? Parents might agree to re-register their children’s accounts under their own names. But what about marginalised, insecure teens who will lose the support of their online communities?

Children are already moving to less popular social media platforms that are not covered by the law. Apps like Lemon8 and Yope are climbing to the top of App Store charts. The government has rushed to remind these services that they must continuously assess whether they meet the definition of a “social media platform with age restrictions.” Step by step, this may push children toward shadow forums.

No, a good old VPN won’t help

The Google search query “VPN” peaked in Australia after the law was passed — just as it had a few months earlier in the UK. At that time, VPN apps became the most downloaded apps on the UK App Store, and major VPN providers reported a thousand percent surge in sign-ups and purchases.

But Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age law is stricter than its British counterpart. It targets not porn sites but the most popular social media platforms, and it prohibits users under 16 from having an account — not merely from accessing content. Most platforms now require an account to view content at all. And they are quite good at estimating users’ ages based on friend networks, preferred content, photos, tags, and by pulling data from app stores or device accounts.

As a result, changing geolocation via a VPN will only work if platforms believe the user is a random foreign visitor rather than an Australian citizen. If a platform determines with high probability that the user is Australian, it must block the account — regardless of where the user is physically located.

So what to do?

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