Six months on from Australia’s under-16s social media ban taking effect, the early verdict from headlines and children themselves has been blunt: it isn’t working.

A new study published today in the British Medical Journal appears to add even more weight to this judgement.

Led by University of Newcastle public health researcher Courtney Barnes, the study found very little evidence that kids had stopped accessing restricted social media platforms such as TikTok, X, Facebook and Instagram.

But the question “are children evading social media age checks?” might be the wrong one to ask when considering the long-term success of Australia’s world-first experiment.

Isolating the effect of the ban

The team behind the new study followed 408 adolescents aged 12–16, surveying them just before the law took effect in December 2025 and again three months later. They compared teenagers just under the age cutoff with those just over it to isolate the law’s effect.

They found more than 85% of under-16s were still using restricted platforms at follow-up, mostly through their own accounts.

Two thirds had encountered age verification, but the most common form was simply being asked to state their age. A minority used fake accounts or private browsing to access social media. But VPN use to evade the ban was rare.

When the researchers checked........

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