2026-09-04
Initial indications suggest that Australia’s 2025 social media ban faces significant challenges in being able to curb harmful algorithmic content or substantially reduce under-16 platform engagement. Therefore, Australia should look to the wave of US legal challenges that are forcing Meta to fix algorithmic deficiencies and pay damages as a regulatory blueprint to address this youth safety vacuum.
By Tomasso Sewell, Green Issue Co-editor
In a landmark ruling this month, New Mexico Judge Bryan Biedscheid ordered Meta to pay US$567 million for the harm its platforms have caused to children's mental health, going so far as to compare the tech giant to a factory, with "the psychological harm to and sexual exploitation of children to be the pollution that must be abated."
In many ways, Australia has been at the forefront of recognising the very risks Judge Biedscheid raised. At a federal level, this culminated in the landmark social media ban, legislated in 2024 and enforced from December 2025, which effectively instituted a blanket restriction prohibiting platforms from allowing under-16s to maintain accounts.
At first glance, there appears to be significant parity in intent between these two actions. However, a closer look reveals a critical paradox – while the Australian model restricts users through a blanket ban, Judge Biedscheid's ruling targets the corporation itself, emphasising the urgent need to eradicate the root cause: the inherent harms and addictive algorithms. This divergence highlights a stark policy contrast, underscoring how Australia's approach manages symptoms rather than the disease, and therefore providing yet another indication that Australia must take stronger action to mitigate the harms of social media on young people.
Is the social media ban working?
As the social media ban came into effect in December last year, various bodies warned pre-emptively of the potential impacts the ban could have, as well as the lack of focus it placed on addressing harmful content on the platforms themselves.
For instance, Damini Satija, Programme Director at Amnesty Tech, warned last year that "A ban is an ineffective quick fix. What is needed are robust safeguards to ensure social media platforms stop exposing users to harms through their relentless pursuit of user engagement and their exploitation of people's personal data."
Additionally, Australia's own Human Rights Commission released an explainer prior to the social media ban coming into effect, warning that "A ban does not address the root causes of online risks or make the platforms safer for everyone."
Despite such warnings, the social media ban lacks an explicit statutory digital duty of care, does not substantially alter platforms' underlying design or content, and recent evidence suggests that it has been relatively easy to bypass even though platforms are required to take “reasonable steps” to prevent under-16 users from retaining accounts.
In fact, as reported by Al Jazeera, a recent eSafety study found that more than 8 in 10 Australians under-16 are continuing to use social media despite the implementation of the social media ban and a significant amount of these users were using social media just as regularly in March as they had been before the ban came into effect last year.
"Most under-16s who had social media accounts before commencement were able to either retain them or create new ones at the three-month mark, with social media platforms' failure to implement effective age assurance measures cited as the main reason," eSafety reported.
Currently, the Greens have been one of the most vocal parties in favour of a digital duty of care rather than simply a blanket ban, with Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young articulating, "You don't make platforms safer by just locking young people out. The Greens do not support a blunt age ban and will keep pushing for stronger action backed by evidence to tackle the toxic algorithms and insidious business model of these giant corporations."
Consequently, the Australian social media ban fails on two critical counts. First, it cannot effectively block children under 16 from retaining social media accounts, which defeats the core purpose of the blanket ban. Second, for the majority of under-16s who continue to access these platforms, the ban fails to reduce harmful content proliferating online.
It is precisely here that Judge Biedscheid's ruling demands heightened attention.
How does Judge Biedscheid's ruling differ from the Australian model?
Central to Judge Biedscheid's ruling was a US$567 million abatement remedy imposed on Meta. Yet rather than the penalty being paid into a general fund, the court directed the money into a newly created abatement fund which Judge Biedscheid said is designed to mitigate “the wide-ranging impacts of the harm.” This translated into US$420 million being earmarked for youth treatment programs, while the remaining balance covers screening and assessment, awareness and prevention, and referral management over five years.
Beyond the financial penalty, the court also ordered Meta to alter how Instagram and Facebook function for minors in New Mexico. For instance, underage accounts are entirely banned from sending or receiving nudity – a point of particular relevance to Australia, given that 32% of Australian children aged 10–17 have been exposed to sexually explicit material online, according to eSafety.
Furthermore, Judge Biedscheid also ordered measures aimed at reducing digital addiction and engagement, including mandating that Meta eliminate "like" counts for users under 18, restrict push notifications for minors overnight and during school hours, and enforce a mandatory usage limit of 90 cumulative hours per month (about 3 hours per day) across Instagram and Facebook for minors.
Cumulatively, these financial penalties and operational mandates achieve three notable outcomes: establishing the idea that platforms must pay for the psychological damage they cause, mandating that reparations be invested directly into youth mental health, and eliminating exploitative and addictive design features – like the "like" count – to reduce future harm.
However, it is worth mentioning that the ruling applies only to the jurisdiction of New Mexico and Meta has indicated that it will seek to appeal the decision.
Global crisis, local effects
Undeniably, social media forms a central part of Australia's youth digital landscape, with a 2024 Mission Australia report finding that 97% of Australian teenagers aged 15 to 19 use social media every day and 38% spend three hours or more online daily. These effects have been serious enough to force the Albanese government to pass an under-16 social media ban – a testament to the scale of the digital-addiction crisis Australia is witnessing.
In Western Australia, Dr Daniela Vecchio, head of mental health and addiction services at Fiona Stanley Hospital, founded Australia's first publicly funded gaming disorder clinic in 2022, after noticing a sharp rise in patients affected by gaming and social media addiction. Named the 2026 Australian of the Year for Western Australia in recognition of her pioneering work for the community, Dr Vecchio is at the forefront of many sounding the alarm over the growing crisis of social media addiction, warning that "Australia has not developed the services and supports they need."
Experts like Dr Vecchio depict a grim reality for many people struggling with digital addiction, articulating, based on experience in the field, that "Many people who are affected by online addiction lose important life chances, become isolated, refuse to go to school or work and are ultimately marginalised."
Having treated close to 500 patients, Vecchio's clinic demonstrates that, even at a local level, social media and digital addiction remains a highly pertinent issue in our society.
Nonetheless, as Dr Vecchio articulates, "without adequate funding we are less able to effectively raise awareness, screen patients and conduct early intervention and prevention," strengthening Judge Biedscheid's position that social media companies must pay for the harm they helped create, all while reinforcing the argument that the social media ban alone is inadequate to address the scale of the digital-addiction crisis – or to support clinics like Dr Vecchio's, which are left to deal with the fallout that the ban's loopholes have failed to prevent.
Conclusion
Principally because of the unresolved issues within the social media ban, the youth of Australia continue to remain exposed and negatively impacted by harmful content and addictive features.
And despite emerging case studies which Australia must take on board as a blueprint for more complete legislation to address the harms of social media, particularly among youth, there remains a lack of direction as to how the government will seek to mitigate the effects that social media has had, directly and indirectly, on Australian youth.
As components of Judge Biedscheid's ruling has demonstrated, and as Dr Vecchio has raised, the next step is to properly “legislate, regulate and tax” to protect people online and to fund prevention, early intervention and treatment.
Header Photo: Close-up of a woman holding a smartphone displaying the Instagram app indoors. Credit: Image by Sanket Mishra via Pexels
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]