Australia Becomes Latest Nation to Tighten Online Age Rules, Adding YouTube to Under‑16 Ban

Australia joins a fast‑growing wave of countries imposing the same strict age checks to access online content.

The Youtube logo displayed by a tablet, on Oct. 5, 2021. Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images

Australia will include YouTube in its upcoming under‑16 social media ban, aligning itself with a growing number of countries introducing stricter age limits for online platforms.

Several countries, including the UK, France, Italy, and the wider European Union bloc, are also tightening rules on underage access to social media or online content by enforcing strict age verification or requiring parental consent.

In a statement on July 30, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that delaying access to social media, including YouTube, until the age of 16 will “protect young Australians at a critical stage of their development, giving them three more years to build real world connections and online resilience.”

Australia promised earlier to exclude YouTube from its social media ban.

Now, YouTube joins age-restricted social media platforms that will face fines of up to $49.5 million ($33 million) if they fail to take steps to prevent underage account holders from accessing their services.

Age-restricted social media platforms will include Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X, and YouTube.

A YouTube spokesperson said in a statement on July 29 that it did not believe that YouTube was social media.

It said that it shares the government’s goal of “addressing and reducing online harms.”

“Our position remains clear: YouTube is a video sharing platform with a library of free, high-quality content, increasingly viewed on TV screens. It’s not social media,” it said.

“The Government’s announcement today reverses a clear, public commitment to exclude YouTube from this ban. We will consider next steps and will continue to engage with the Government.”

YouTube was initially exempted from the scope of the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, as the government did not classify it as a social media service.

Instead, it was viewed as a video-sharing platform with limited social interaction functions that hosts a large amount of educational content used in classrooms or teaching environments.

However, this changed when a recent report by the eSafety Commission said that 37 percent of Australian children aged 10–15 reported encountering harmful or inappropriate content on YouTube.

This prompted eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant to formally recommend to Minister for Communications Anika Wells that YouTube be included in the social media ban.

Australia’s law goes considerably further than most by banning social media for children; however, other countries are implementing strict age checks on sites to reach the same goal.

In the UK, new age verification rules were introduced after the latest provisions of the Online Safety Act took effect on July 25.

The rules require online platforms to implement strict age checks to shield children from content deemed harmful, including bullying, pornography, self-harm, and hateful content.

They effectively mean that all adult internet users in the UK must prove that they are not children to access certain websites.

France, Spain, Italy, Denmark, and Greece are testing what the European Union Commission calls its “blueprint” for an age verification app for children across the 27-member state bloc.

The EU Commission said that the initiative aims to allow European users to prove they are old enough to legally access age-restricted sites, starting with being older than 18 for accessing adult-restricted online content, such as pornography, gambling, purchasing alcohol, and others.

The commission said that the tech is built on the same technical specifications as the European Digital Identity Wallets (eIDs) that are to be rolled out before the end of 2026.

The eIDs will be for every EU citizen so they can prove who they are when accessing digital services, such as when opening a new bank account.

France has made it mandatory since 2023 for children under 15 to obtain parental consent to register on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok.

Italy’s regulator Agcom is also rolling out age assurance for adult content platforms to prevent access by minors under a recent law.

In the United States, at least 24 states to date have passed laws requiring age verification to access online pornography.

Alfred Bui contributed to this report.