Australia's social media ban for teens is going, uh, pretty badly

Australia's social media ban hasn't stopped a lot of kids from using social media.

Elena Medoks/Getty Images Australia banned kids under 16 from social media apps in December 2025.

A new report shows that the ban hasn't been effective — plenty of kids are still on social media.

Sneaky teens have found easy ways to evade the bans.

Imagine for a moment that you're an Australian 14-year-old (if you are an Australian 14-year-old, well, thank you for reading Business Insider, first of all.

You can skip ahead).

Life is already hard enough — your toilets flush the other way, and there's that whole cane toad problem.

But worst of all, as of December 2025, your government banned social media like Instagram, TikTok, and Snap for kids under 16.

Crikey, right? But much like the resolve and perseverance of Olympic breakdancer ' Raygun,' you are going to keep forging your own path, haters and naysayers be damned.

So you figure out a way (it's not hard!) to skirt around the age restriction and scroll, watch, chat, and post on your favorite social media apps.

You, an imaginary Australian teen, are not alone.

According to a report by parental-control tool company Qustodio, the Australian social media ban has been impressively ineffective.

Bloomberg writes about the report: Some 26% of children between the ages of 13 and 15 were on TikTok as of last month, just one percentage point below the rate prior to Australia's groundbreaking rules coming into effect, the parental control software maker said.

The rate for children between the ages of 10 and 12 is higher now than before the ban, according to the data.