Social Media bans for minors become effective in many countries
- Valerie Charoux
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
Social Media News - Social Media bans for minors are becoming legally effective in many countries, including Australia, and existing accounts will be deactivated or removed. To this effect, minors are considered under 18 in the UK and under 16 in Australia.
A 2025 study commissioned by the Australian government reported that 96% of children aged 10-15 used social media and that seven out of 10 of them have been exposed to harmful content and behavior, including content promoting suicide, pedophilia and cyberbullying.
According to an Ipsos report dated October 2, 2025, a majority of 71% of people across 30 countries now support banning the use of social media to children under 14.
Governments are cracking down on social media age limits, states an OECD report dated June 12th, 2025. The OECD plans to conduct research on age assurance technologies and age appropriateness for digital services used by children, as the failure to verify a user’s real age has serious consequences.
Here is a list of some of the countries where Social Media bans for minors are becoming effective:
1 - Australia
The Australian government is legally banning the use of social media to children under 16, effective from December 10th, 2025.
Australia is banning the following 10 social media platforms to children under sixteen, namely: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit and streaming platforms Kick and Twitch.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, has already announced it will begin closing accounts of minors from December 4th, 2025.
The Australian’s Government is also under pressure to expand the ban to online gaming platforms, that already led gaming platforms Roblox and Discord to introduce age checks.
The social media platforms that are currently not deemed to be harmful for children include YouTube Kids, Google Classroom and WhatsApp.
The Australian legislation subjects social media platforms to fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars (around 30 million euros or USD 32.3 million) for allowing children under 16 to create accounts.
2 - The United Kingdom
The UK government legally banned the use of harmful content on social media and other online platforms to children under 18 since July 25, 2025.
The UK enacted the Children’s Codes that define harmful content, including platforms promoting: suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, pornography, abusive material, online bullying and dangerous challenges. The UK’s Online Safety Act includes the following content as being illegal for minors: child sexual abuse, controlling or coercive behavior, extreme sexual violence, promoting suicide or self-harm, selling illegal drugs or weapons, terrorism, sending unsolicited sexual imagery online and sharing "deepfake" pornography.
The UK is banning Porn sites as well as forbidden content found on sites that provide harmful content to children under 18, including content on the following platforms: such as Pornhub, Reddit, X, Grindr, Telegram, Discord, and Bluesky.
Failure to comply with the UK Children’s Codes could result in businesses being fined £18m or 10% of their global revenues - whichever is higher - or their executives being jailed. In very serious cases Ofcom can apply for a court order to prevent the site or app from being available in the UK.
3 – Denmark
The Government of Denmark will legally ban the use of social media and other harmful platforms to children under 15.
4 – Norway
The Government of Norway will legally ban the use of social media and other harmful platforms to children under 15.
5 – France
The French Government will legally ban the use of social media and other harmful platforms to children under 15 + will enforce a social media "curfew" for minors aged 15 to 18 years old.
6 – The EU as a whole
The EU Parliament approved new EU measures needed to make online services safer for minors on October 16th, 2025.
Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the standard age at which a minor can consent to their personal data being processed is 16 years old. However, Member States can set this national "digital age of majority" at a lower age.
Age Verification in the EU as a whole is being developed for a harmonized approach to age verification, including a European Digital Identity Wallet (eID) that could be used to securely verify age without excessive data collection.
