In November 2024, Australia became the first country to legislate a blanket social media ban for children under 16. It came into effect in early 2025, and platforms faced fines of up to AUD $49.5 million for breaches. Today, the Molly Rose Foundation published the first independent polling of Australian children since the ban came into force. The headline finding: three in five children aged 12 to 15 who previously had social media accounts still have at least one active account.
What the polling found
The polling of 1,050 children by the Molly Rose Foundation and YouthInsight revealed three headline statistics:
- 61% of Australian 12–15-year-olds who previously had accounts still have one or more active accounts
- 51% of children who used social media before the ban say it has made no difference to their online safety
- 1 in 7 children now feel less safe online than they did before the ban came into effect
The polling also revealed something that challenges a core assumption behind the ban, that platforms would proactively identify and remove underage accounts. In most cases, they have not. Children have not needed to find workarounds at scale. The accounts were simply never removed.
Platform non-compliance
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Instagram & TikTok · 60% · 60% of continuing users said the platform took no action to remove or deactivate their account
Snapchat · 61% · Marginally higher non-compliance rate than Instagram and TikTok
YouTube · 64% · YouTube is accessible without sign-in, making enforcement structurally more difficult
In late March 2026, Australia's Communications Minister confirmed that the government would investigate Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube for potential violations of the ban, after the eSafety Commission found that platforms were allowing children who had already declared themselves underage to make repeated attempts at age verification.
"Parents and children deserve better than a flawed ban that delivers a false sense of safety that quickly unravels. Proponents of a ban argue that it offers an immediate and decisive firebreak, but the early evidence from Australia shows it only lets tech firms off the hook."
. Andy Burrows, Chief Executive, Molly Rose Foundation
Why the ban hasn't worked, structurally
The Australian law does not prescribe a specific age verification method. It requires platforms to take "reasonable steps", a flexible standard that has, in practice, allowed platforms to make minimal changes and claim compliance. The eSafety Commissioner found widespread underage use and minimal measures to prevent the creation of new accounts.
Age verification technology is also imperfect by design. Every verification method has an error rate, and when the question is as granular as "is this person 15 or 16?", those errors multiply. The result is a system that inconveniences some children, fails to catch others, and may push a portion of users toward less regulated or less visible platforms where they have fewer account protections than before.
On children feeling less safe: One in seven children now report feeling less safe than before the ban. The Molly Rose Foundation's submitted evidence to Parliament notes that distressed teenagers are turning to support services citing the ban as a reason for their distress, and that children experiencing suicidality or self-harm ideation may lose access to peer support communities while still being able to access harmful content through unmoderated channels.
The UK context right now
The UK Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill is currently at "ping pong" between the House of Commons and Lords. Lord Nash's amendment proposing an age limit for under-16s on harmful social media was agreed by the Lords again on 25 March 2026 by 266 to 141 votes, having been rejected by the Commons. The Bill is scheduled to return to the Commons on 15 April 2026.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall has previously said her department "will look closely at the experience in Australia" before deciding which approach to take. A consultation by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology closes on 26 May 2026. Today's polling arrives at a moment when that decision is live, and contested.
Ian Russell, whose 14-year-old daughter Molly died in 2017 after viewing harmful online content, the case that gave the Molly Rose Foundation its name, has been clear about where the Foundation stands. The argument is not that the UK should do nothing. It is that a ban is the wrong instrument: a blunt measure that penalises children for the failures of tech firms, offers a perception of protection without the substance, and, if Australia is the guide, may not even be enforceable in practice.
The Foundation's position, and that of a broad coalition of children's safety organisations, is that the right path is strengthening the Online Safety Act, expanding its scope, introducing wellbeing-by-design duties, and holding platforms accountable for the algorithmic and design choices that drive harm, rather than moving children around between platforms.
It is early days. The Molly Rose Foundation is explicit that more than a dozen academic evaluations of the Australian ban are currently underway, and that long-term, robust data is needed before definitive conclusions can be drawn. Today's polling is the first independent data point, not the last word. But it is the first word from the children themselves, and what they are saying matters.
What actually protects children online
The debate over bans risks obscuring a more important question: what does the evidence say actually works? The Molly Rose Foundation's own research and that of the broader child safety community points consistently toward the same answers, not age gates, but platform design.
Algorithmic accountability
Platforms should face mandatory obligations around recommendation systems, preventing harmful content from being amplified to children regardless of how they accessed the platform.
Wellbeing-by-design duties
New duties requiring platforms to build products that are age-appropriate, high-quality, and actively nourishing, not merely harm-reducing, as a condition of operating in the UK.
Proactive detection, not reactive removal
Detecting grooming, sextortion, coercive control, and radicalisation before harm occurs, at the message level, in real time, rather than waiting for reports after the damage is done.
Enforcing what already exists
The Online Safety Act contains substantial child safety obligations that are not yet fully enforced. Strengthening enforcement of existing law may deliver more protection than new legislation that cannot be implemented.
What this means for platforms
Whether or not a UK ban eventually passes, the direction of travel for platform regulation is clear: more obligation, more accountability, and more scrutiny of what happens inside products rather than simply who can access them. The Australian experience suggests that access-based restrictions without detection infrastructure are hollow, platforms that can claim compliance while 60% of underage accounts remain active are not protecting children, they are managing liability.
The platforms that will be ahead of this curve are those building detection capabilities now, not waiting for the next legislative cycle to tell them what they are required to do.
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Research verified. This post is based on polling by the Molly Rose Foundation and YouthInsight of 1,050 Australian children aged 12–15, published April 2026. All statistics cited are drawn directly from that polling or from named secondary sources.
Sources: Molly Rose Foundation and YouthInsight polling of 1,050 Australian children aged 12–15, published April 2026 · Planet Rock / Hello Rayo, April 2026 · Molly Rose Foundation written evidence to Parliament · Wikipedia. Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 · International Bar Association, 2026.