Millions of under-16s lose access to social media after Australia's world-first ban begins

Australia has enacted a world-first ban on social media for users aged under 16, causing millions of children and teenagers to lose access to their accounts.

- Josh Taylor Melbourne

Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kick, Twitch and TikTok are expected to have taken steps from today to remove accounts held by users under 16 years of age in Australia and prevent those same teenagers from registering new accounts. Platforms that do not comply risk being handed fines of up to A$49.5m (£25m).

The implementation of the ban has encountered some teething problems. The Guardian received several reports of children below the age of 16 passing the facial age assurance tests, but the government has flagged it is not expecting the ban will be perfect from day one.

All listed platforms apart from X had confirmed by yesterday they would comply with the ban. The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said they had recently had a conversation with X about how it would comply, but the company had not communicated its policy to users.

Bluesky, an X alternative, announced yesterday it would also ban under-16s, despite eSafety assessing the platform as “low risk” owing to its small user base of 50,000 people in Australia.

Children had spent the past few weeks undertaking age assurance checks, swapping phone numbers and preparing for their accounts to be deactivated. The Australian chief executive and co-founder of the age assurance service k-ID, Kieran Donovan, said his service had conducted hundreds of thousands of age checks in the past few weeks. The k-ID service was being used by Snapchat among others.