Australia’s world-first attempt to block kids under 16 from social media is not going according to plan. According to a new report by Fortune, young users are already punching holes in the system faster than regulators can patch them.
The ban launched in December 2025, requiring platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat to confirm how old their users actually are. Teens, predictably, didn’t just shrug and log off. Some are ordering printed mesh masks from Temu to fool facial recognition. Others are borrowing a parent’s face — or just their ID.
A survey from the Molly Rose Foundation puts a number on it: 60% of teens who had accounts before the ban still have access to at least one platform. Part of the reason is that tech giants haven’t made much effort to proactively remove underage accounts that already exist. I mean, it’s in their best interest to get as many eyeballs anyways to push advertisements.
Sound familiar? It might soon. Ottawa is “seriously considering” similar restrictions for Canadian minors. If it follows Australia’s lead, it could be walking into the same mess.
Canadian teens have all the same tools at their disposal. On top of masks and borrowed IDs, many would likely turn to VPNs to make it look like they’re browsing from somewhere without a ban in place.
The deeper problem, some researchers argue, is that these laws treat access as the issue rather than asking what’s drawing kids online in the first place. We really should be teaching kids about self control and the realities of how everything on social media is just fake and toxic anyways, as it’s all for the views.
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