Age-Gating Social Media at 16: Some Thoughts For Parents Caregivers and Legislators in Canada Before We Follow Australia’s Lead
- The White Hatter
- 7 hours ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 2 hours ago
Caveat - We have been watching very closely the development and the implementation of Australia’s legislative Social Media age-gating regulations for over a year, which has now taken effect as of December 10th 2025. We have been asked by several Canadian based news organization about our thoughts on Australia’s legislation, so we thought we would share them with our followers as well!
Australia recently introduced legislation that requires “certain” social media platforms, (facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Reddit, X - also known as Twitter, Twitch, Kick, and Instagram Threads) to prevent anyone under the aged of 16 from using their services. The responsibility is placed on the platforms themselves, not on parents, schools, or ISPs. This law has created global conversation, pressure, and curiosity, including here in Canada where some advocacy groups want the government to adopt the same model.
NOTE - those under 16 can still watch YouTube, scroll through TikTok and browse Instagram, they just can't log in. This means they're viewing everything without filters or age-appropriate protections. YouTube itself warned parents that its parental controls "only work when your teen is signed in."
On the surface, it sounds simple. Lets’s restrict access thus keeping teens away from harm. However, once you look under the hood, the picture becomes more complicated. Parents and caregivers need to understand what Australia’s legislative experiment is actually doing, what it isn’t doing, and what lessons Canada should take from it before passing legislation of our own. This article breaks down the key issues we have seen thus far, so families can stay informed and involved in the national conversation.
Why Australia Took Action, And Why It Was Rushed
There’s no question that Australia acted boldly. Many parents and caregivers have applauded the government for finally stepping in after years of frustration with platforms. There’s also strong political motivation behind the move. Officials in the government wanted to show decisive action on youth mental health and digital harm, and the public appetite for quick solutions made the timing attractive.
The problem is that fast political wins don’t always equal good long-term policy. Even Australian experts have acknowledged that this legislation entered force quickly, less than a month from the introduction to the passing of the Bill, with gaps that will need refining once real-world consequences appear. That’s not a criticism; it’s an opportunity for the rest of the world to observe what works and what doesn’t before replicating the same approach. We believe that Canada should take that opportunity before adopting a similar law.
What the Legislation Actually Does
At its core, the Australian law requires certain social media platforms to block anyone under 16 from accessing their services. The goal is to prevent a minor from entering into a contractual agreement with a platform when they tap “accept” during account creation or app download unless they are 16yrs or older. That’s the central requirement of the legislation
But here’s the concern that often gets lost:
The law does nothing to require platforms to address the underlying issues that put young people at risk in the first place.
The intention behind age-gating was to protect kids from:
predatory behaviour
sexual exploitation
harassment and digital peer aggression
toxic or inappropriate content
algorithmic pressure
• addictive design
Yet under this legislation, once a teen turns 16, they regain full access to the exact same environment that lawmakers said was too harmful for them at 15.
If the problem is the content and the behaviour happening on these platforms, simply blocking younger teens doesn’t actually fix the safety problem.
The predation pipeline doesn’t disappear at 16. Legislating age restrictions doesn’t remove predation or coercion from the digital ecosystem. It only shifts when young people encounter those risks.
A 15 year old blocked today becomes a 16-year-old with instant access tomorrow, facing the same vulnerabilities the law was designed to avoid. Predators aren’t concerned with birthdays. The underlying risk profile doesn’t magically change in a single day.
It should also be noted that Australia’s equivalent to the Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear an argument from a group of teens who have filed a legal petition outlining why this new age-gating law violates their constitutional rights , and should be struck down. Their main argument, the law violates the constitutional (implied) right to “freedom of political communication.” Under this view, preventing minors from having social-media accounts restricts their ability to participate in public discourse, share opinions, organize, advocate, effectively shutting them out of a major communication medium. They also argue the ban is “disproportionate”, a blanket, age-based cut-off rather than a more nuanced set of protections, and that less restrictive alternatives (e.g., content moderation, safety features, parental controls) could better balance youth protection with rights. We believe these same arguments would be true under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Many Australian legal scholars believe that this teen lead legal petition has a very strong foundational legal argument. It will be very interesting to follow this legal case as it unfolds over the next couple of months.
We argue, that if the goal is to reduce harm, you need measures that make platforms safer for everyone, not just age gates that postpone the moment a young person enters the environment. Relying on age gates alone is like putting a sign on a contaminated bio-hazard room that says, “come back when you’re older.” The underlying hazard is still there. Real protection comes from cleaning and treating the environment itself, not from delaying when someone walks through the door.”
A colleague in Australia shared this comment with us from a 15 year old they had presented to on the new Australian law:
"I don’t get it, it’s like I loved that playground to connect and play in with my friends, now you’re banning me from that playground because it’s dangerous but also to play it safe we’re banning you from all these other ones too.”
She then went on to say….
”Why aren’t they fixing the playground???”
This type of legislation will only cause social media companies to slow down on real efforts to keep youth and teens safer online because now all they have to say is, "Children are not supposed to be on our platforms and we have put an “approved” age-gate in place as required by law, so we have done our due diligence“.
The Migration Problem: Whack-A-Mole by Legislation
Perhaps the biggest unintended consequence already appearing in Australia is platform migration.
Young people aren’t disappearing from social media because of this legislation, they are shifting to:
platforms not included in the legislation (Discord, WhatsApp, Steam, Github, Roblox, Pinterest, Google classroom)
niche apps less monitored and less regulated
• services with weaker safety infrastructure
Whenever teens move, predators move with them. This dynamic is constant. If youth migrate to other platforms, those who want to target them will be there too.
Australia says it will monitor migration and add platforms to the list as needed, but this creates a never ending catch-up game of whack-a-mole. By the time legislators identify the next platform, youth will already be active on it, often without the safety scaffolding that the larger platforms at least attempt to provide. Regulation that tries to keep up with whichever app teens move to will always be reactive, and the challenge grows as more young people shift toward artificial intelligence platforms.
The Privacy Implications of Age-Gating That Can’t Be Overlooked and Considered.
Age-gating may appear simple on the surface, but enforcing it in practice also raises serious privacy questions that parents and caregivers need to understand. To verify a young person’s age, platforms must collect some form of identifying information. That could involve government issued ID, biometric scans, facial analysis, third-party age-verification companies, or data-matching tools that create permanent records. Each of these methods carries risks if the data is stored, shared, or breached.
Parents and caregivers should also recognize that once a verification system exists, it rarely stays limited to one purpose. History shows that tools designed for safety often expand over time into broader forms of monitoring or identity tracking. This is especially concerning when dealing with minors, who may have little control over how their personal information is handled or how long it remains in a company’s possession.
There is also the question of accuracy. Age-estimation technologies can misidentify racialized youth, children with disabilities, and individuals who do not conform to typical facial-development patterns. Errors could lock out legitimate users or misclassify adults as minors, raising fairness and discrimination concerns. Again, something that is being reported in Australia
Fact, creating a database of verified minors introduces a potential “honeypot” for attackers. If a system that collects sensitive youth data is ever compromised, the consequences could be severe and long-lasting. While the intention behind age-gating is to reduce harm, the privacy trade-offs need to be understood clearly before adopting similar policies in Canada.
So What Should Canada Do Instead?
If Canada is serious about protecting youth legislatively, which we should be, we need smarter legislation. Age-gating may play a small role, but it cannot be the foundation in our opinion. Here are some of our thoughts
1. Turn Off Algorithmic Recommendation Systems for Canadians Under 18
The largest risks young people face often come from algorithmic design. These systems push content based on engagement, not well-being. They amplify emotional intensity, sensational content, and identity-shaping pressures.
Platforms already geo-target features. They turn off tools in specific countries when required by law. We believe that there is no technical barrier to disabling recommendation algorithms for minors in Canada.
This would prevent:
auto-fed mature content
extreme rabbit-holing
rapid exposure to harmful communities
• addictive engagement loops
This protects youth at the design level, not by banning them.
2. Impose A Legally Binding Duty Of Care on Social Media Companies
We need to create legislative requirements where platforms must design and operate their services in ways that reduce foreseeable harm to users, especially youth and teens. Such legislation shifts responsibility to the companies that build the online environments young people use every day. Such Duty of Care should include:
Mandatory safety by design standards
Risk Assessment and risk mitigation standards
Restriction of data collection from youth and teens
independant oversight and audits
3. Require Every Platform to Offer a Clear, Accessible Reporting Portal That Is Human Lead and Not Just an AI Bot.
Right now parents, caregivers, and teens often struggle to figure out:
where to report abuse
how to escalate concerns
what qualifies for removal
• how fast platforms must respond
Legislation should require:
a single, easy-to-find reporting entry point
transparent timelines for response
a real obligation for platforms to act within those timelines
• meaningful consequences when they don’t
A reporting system, that is human lead and not just a bot, that works gives families a tool they can actually use, regardless of a child’s age.
4. Introduce Financial Penalties That Matter
Large tech companies respond to financial pressure far more effectively than symbolic political messaging. It’s a money game plain and simple. However, such penalties need to be seen more than just a “cost of doing business” to these companies given that their financial profits will dwarf the financial penalties.
If Canada wants compliance, the penalties must be high enough to matter. Small fines will be absorbed as operating costs. Significant penalties tied to non-compliance change corporate behaviour and meaningful financial consequences drive accountability.
5. Give Parents Real Control Through On-Device Age Restriction Features
Families differ. One 14-year-old may be ready for limited social media use. Another 16-year-old may not. Emotional and developmental maturity never matches a single number.
The solution is not to legislate one fixed age for everyone, but to empower parents to set individualized, and extremely easy to use device-level restrictions that match their child’s needs that protects both the safety and the privacy of the youth or teen
This technology exists, and it can be improved and expanded through regulation.
6. Create an Independent Canadian e-Commissioner
Australia has an eSafety Commissioner, and Canada should adopt a similar model. A dedicated digital safety regulator could:
enforce youth-protection laws
coordinate with global regulators, there is strength in numbers
ensure compliance timelines are met
publicly report on platform behaviour
recommend improvements to legislation
• oversee investigations into digital harm
This keeps enforcement out of political cycles and places it in the hands of an independent expert body.
Parents are rightfully frustrated. They want solutions that reduce risk and actually make online environments safer. Quick fixes, even with good intentions, don’t deliver long-term change. We also need to ensure that youth and teens have a strong voice in legislative development, something that has been sadly lacking in may countries, including Canada. Youth and teens have a lot to offer us as adults, we adults just need to be willing to listen and engage.
Australia’s approach is worth watching, but it is not the model Canada should rush to copy. We need to pay attention to the lessons being learned right now:
age-gates alone don’t fix harm
youth migration creates new risks
predators follow access, not legislation
algorithmic systems remain untouched
16 is an arbitrary line that doesn’t reflect individual readiness
• enforcement must be real, not symbolic
By learning first and legislating second, Canada can create a safer, more thoughtful digital ecosystem for children and teens.
Protecting young people online requires more than blocking access. It requires reshaping digital environments, combined with realistic digital literacy education, and more importantly parental communication, parental participation, and parental overwatch, so that our youth and teens are safer, regardless of age. That means:
design-level protections
meaningful regulation
strong enforcement
tools for parents
accountability for platforms
• education for families and youth
Canada has an opportunity to build a model that reflects evidence, global lessons, and the real needs of Canadian families. Let’s not waste that opportunity by copying a law that even Australia acknowledges will require significant revision, and is a work in progress.
Parents deserve policies that actually keep their kids safer online, not policies that feel good politically while leaving the real risks, including social media vendor financial predation, untouched.
Call to action:
If you agree with our thesis, please send an email, with a link to this article, to the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (CHPC), who are currently conducting hearings on this very issue, and will be making recommendations on legislation to government.
Digital Food For Thought
The White Hatter
Facts Not Fear, Facts Not Emotions, Enlighten Not Frighten, Know Tech Not No Tech
