What apps are getting banned in Australia?<\/a><\/p>\nNine platforms are included in Australia’s world-first social media ban for under 16s next month.<\/p>\n
That list was only finalised this week and is subject to change in the future as new platforms emerge or change their functions.<\/p>\n
With just over a month until the start date, Mr Albanese said tech companies currently included in the ban were “engaged” with government on the issue of informing underage users about their imminent suspension from platforms, but did not reveal if any had advised how they planned to communicate this.<\/p>\n
He said he expected the platforms, which would face fines of up to $49 million if they failed to ensure young users were removed and remained off their sites, to comply with the laws.<\/p>\n
“The eSafety commissioner [Julie Inman Grant] will of course be on top of those issues, she will operate independently at arm’s length of government,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But we want social media companies to do their best to comply with the law, and they have to show that they’re going to best endeavours to do so.”<\/p>\n
‘That’s the history of social change for common good’<\/p>\n
Despite the laws placing enforcement responsibility on tech companies, Mr Albanese has strongly emphasised his belief the real change would come through voluntary compliance from the community.<\/p>\n
“This isn’t a debate that’s come from government making a decision and then telling their community this is what must happen: it’s the reverse here, this is the community demanding an appropriate government response and demanding that social media companies show social responsibility,” he said.<\/p>\n
“This will empower parents to talk with their kids.”<\/p>\n
![\"Albanese](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/a3577f58f977073200c9b25cf874aee3\")
<\/p>\n
Anthony Albanese says social media age restrictions will come to be seen as a social good, like seatbelt rules and alcohol age requirements. (ABC News: Luke Stephenson)<\/p>\n
Mr Albanese cited alcohol age limits and laws requiring seatbelts as examples where social expectations were created over time and “people increasingly voluntarily comply”.<\/p>\n
“That’s the history of social change for common good,” he said.<\/p>\n
“And that’s what [the social media ban] is, this is about the common good.”<\/p>\n
Mr Albanese also compared the changes to mobile phone bans in schools.<\/p>\n
“Just as the banning of phones in school classrooms by many state governments hasn’t on day one led to perfect compliance, now it’s just accepted that there are improved educational outcomes, improved behaviour, improved social outcomes as a result,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said the “world was watching” Australia, and acknowledged the European Union and New Zealand were among the jurisdictions looking to see how the laws worked in practice.<\/p>\n
“I’m confident this will be successful,” he said.<\/p>\n
Social media linked to anxiety, loneliness, depression<\/p>\n
Mr Albanese said he was “inspired” and “proud” of young people like year 6 student Flossie Brodribb, who used a school project to research the impact of social media on young brains and developed a pledge for her classmates who agreed to stick to the government’s age restriction.<\/p>\n
The 12-year-old from Hobart was invited to meet Mr Albanese in Canberra to discuss her work, which she said had been prompted by an interest in testing her parents’ claims social media was bad for children.<\/p>\n
“I decided to choose this topic because I’ve always been super interested in how the brain works and I’ve never been allowed social media, and I wanted to see if the science actually backed up my parents’ reasoning,” she said.<\/p>\n
“And they were right, as much as I hate to say it \u2026 social media has lots of impacts I wouldn’t want to be exposed to you.”<\/p>\n
Flossie spoke with neuroscientist Dr Lila Landowski and child psychologist Cassie Xintavalonis for her project on the links between social media use and rates of anxiety, loneliness, depression, eating disorders and body dysmorphia among children and young teens.<\/p>\n
She said she believed the ban would help parents settle debates with their younger children about whether they were old enough to access social media.<\/p>\n
“I think it will help a lot of parents because it’s not them saying no, it’s an actual law,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Albanese says he is confident Australia’s social media age limit will be a success and that people…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":358941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[38602,4740,1066,55794,563,6586,50,80,213,174657],"class_list":{"0":"post-358940","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-anthony-albanese","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-facebook","11":"tag-federal-politics","12":"tag-instagram","13":"tag-kick","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-reddit","17":"tag-social-media-age-limit"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115500724358341829","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}