Australia Sets Minimum Age for Social Media Use: A Closer Look at the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024

On November 27, 2024, the Australian Parliament passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, introducing a statutory prohibition on individuals under the age of 16 creating or maintaining social media accounts in Australia. The Act amends the Online Safety Act 2021 and places the onus on social media platforms including Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and X to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from accessing their services, with reasonableness assessed by factors including technological feasibility, proportionality, and privacy compliance.

Blanket age restrictions limit access for compliant users but do not address the underlying mechanisms of harm for those who do gain access, whether through evasion, platforms outside the scope of the law, or unmonitored private channels. Detection that targets hostile contact at the point it reaches a child intercepts grooming, sextortion, child sexual abuse material distribution and cyberbullying regardless of the access route, without requiring every user to verify their age or identity. Guardii, a world-leading AI online-safety platform, detects harmful patterns in direct-message conversations in real time, blocking or flagging hostile contact before it reaches the target and surfacing a child in crisis to a parent, school or professional, addressing the threat without the structural trade-offs of blanket exclusion.