The Data on Australia’s Social Media Ban: The Better the Privacy Protection, The Less Effective the Ban
Publish Date: 2026-07-03 07:38:00
Source Domain: www.michaelgeist.ca
As regular readers know, the Canadian plan to establish a social media ban for under 16s in Bill C-34 is based largely on the Australian model that took effect last December. With more data on the ban’s effectiveness continuing to roll in, multiple studies now confirm that it simply hasn’t worked as the majority of under-age users still have access to social media accounts. Yet rather than treating that as a reason to reconsider the model, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told Parliament in late June that his government is working “as a priority” to strengthen the law. The failure highlights a troubling correlation: the better the privacy protection, the less effective the ban. In other words, since users will find ways to circumvent the ban, “strengthening” the law likely means less privacy and more surveillance.
It is still only six months in, but the data thus far is pretty clear cut. The eSafety Commissioner’s own March compliance figures found that roughly seven in ten under 16s still held accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok months after the December 10 commencement. A peer-reviewed study published in the British Medical Journal in June found that more than 85 per cent of under 16s were still using restricted platforms three months in. An April working paper from a team including Cass Sunstein and Angela Duckworth, bluntly titled “Why Bans Fail,” estimated compliance among fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds at about 27 per cent, found that three-quarters of teens considered circumvention easy, and found that nearly two-thirds had never had an account removed. The Molly Rose Foundation’s survey of Australian children found that most who had accounts before the ban still have access, with the Foundation warning the ban “risks offering parents a false sense of safety and risks letting tech firms off the hook for safety failings.”
The Australian government blames the platforms for the law’s failures and…
