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YouTube Warns Australia’s Teen Social Media Ban Will Make Kids Less Safe Online
YouTube says Australia’s new under-16 social media ban will make the platform less safe for children by stripping away the parental controls families rely on.
From 10 December, teens under 16 will be automatically signed out of YouTube accounts, unable to upload videos or comment, as the Social Media Minimum Age Act takes effect. While children can still watch videos, they will do so without accounts removing features such as content restrictions, blocked channels and wellbeing reminders. YouTube Kids is not affected.
The platform criticised the government’s approach as “rushed regulation”, warning that parents will “lose their ability to supervise their teen or tween’s account”, according to Rachel Lord, Google and YouTube Australia’s public policy senior manager. She said the law undermines more than a decade of work building safety tools families use daily.
“Most importantly, this law will not fulfil its promise to make kids safer online, and will, in fact, make Australian kids less safe,” Lord said, adding that parents and educators share these concerns.
Communications Minister Anika Wells pushed back, saying it was “outright weird” for YouTube to highlight dangers on its own platform. “If YouTube is reminding us all that it is not safe, that is a problem YouTube needs to fix,” she said.
YouTube was originally exempt from the ban, but the government reversed the decision in July after the eSafety Commissioner found it was the platform most frequently cited by children aged 10 to 15 who encountered harmful content. Google has reportedly considered a legal challenge, though it has not confirmed this publicly.
As the ban approaches, regulators are also examining two rapidly growing apps Lemon8 and Yope used heavily by teens. eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has asked both to self-assess whether they fall under the new restrictions.
Wells acknowledged that the first weeks after the ban may bring “teething problems”, but said the law is essential to protecting Generation Alpha from what she called “predatory algorithms” that deliver a “dopamine drip” of endless content.
Platforms covered by the ban including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, X, Twitch, Threads, Reddit and Kick must deactivate existing under-16 accounts, block new ones and report compliance every six months. Companies that fail to comply face penalties of up to A$49.5m (US$33m, £25m).