The Australian government is reportedly pursuing legal action against social media providers that have failed to keep users under age 16 out of their apps. This comes as officials try to enforce the teen social media restriction laws that were put into place in December 2025.
With the implementation of those laws, Australia became the first nation to apply more stringent teen social media restrictions. These regulations give local authorities the right to seek financial penalties against social apps that fail to meet the new standards.
But while social apps reported the removal or suspension of hundreds of thousands of suspected teen user profiles following the legislation, initial reports on the impact of the ban showed that most underage users still accessed social apps.
Which the government may now be seeking to address.
As reported by Bloomberg: “Australia’s government is set to sue Facebook, TikTok and other major digital platforms for alleged non-compliance with a nationwide social media ban for under-16s, Communications Minister Anika Wells said in an interview.”
According to the report, Wells flagged coming legal action against Meta, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube. Wells, the nation’s online safety regulator, said she is currently in the process of gathering evidence for proceedings in the federal court.
That could force major platforms to take more decisive action. The current regulations stipulate that social platforms have to “take reasonable steps” to keep young users out of their apps. However, specific interpretation of “reasonable” in this context could provide a legal loophole for the platforms to wriggle out of any liabilities.
The government also didn’t provide specific guidance on the most effective approach, and said instead that there were several options available for platforms to implement age restrictions.
With increased enforcement, however, that could prompt more definitive adherence and enforcement.
In addition, the Australian government doubled the maximum penalty for breaches of the social media minimum age law, meaning that platforms could be hit with fines of $70 million for confirmed breaches.
That could see more comprehensive approaches arise from the platforms, as they look to avoid further penalties.
