Most Australian teens admit the social media ban isn’t working as they try to sidestep age verification blocks with face masks and their parents’ IDs

If teenagers have a will, they will find a way. In the days following Australia’s social media ban for children under 16, the country’s teenagers immediately worked to circumvent the restrictions on the platforms, which included age verification steps, account renewal, and prevention of registration from underage users. Evelyn, a 14-year-old in New South Wales, told The Washington Post in December 2025, just before the implementation of the ban, she planned to use her mother’s face ID to log in to Snapchat and Instagram . In a Reddit thread on ways to bypass the ban, one user suggested using a printed mesh face mask from Temu to outsmart apps’ facial recognition tools. Others still have tried VPNs that obscure their locations. A new report suggests these efforts are working. In a survey of 1,050 Australians ages 12 to 15 conducted last month, the UK-based suicide prevention organization the Molly Rose Foundation found more than 60% of teens who had social media accounts before the bank still had access to at least one of those platforms. Social media sites including TikTok, YouTube , and Instagram, have retained more than half of their users under 16. About two-thirds of young users say these platforms have taken “no action” to remove or reactive accounts that existed before the restrictions. The survey comes at the heels of the Australian internet regulator calling for an investigation into the five largest social media platforms over potential breaches of the ban. Australia, the first country to implement a widespread social media ban for underage teens, has effectively become the guinea pig for other governments similarly considering hefty restrictions on the platforms. Greece, France, Indonesia, Austria, Spain, and the UK have or are considering similar action, and eight U.S. states are weighing legislation that would put guardrails or ban social media use for minors. As Australia looks to crack down on tech platforms to improve the efficacy of its ban, it is f…