The Albanese Government is targeting harmful and addictive social media features aimed at reducing how often young Australians are kept engaged online.
Updated rules further define “age-restricted social media platforms” as services that adopt:
- recommender systems (algorithms), designed to be addictive and provide constant dopamine hits by providing highly personalised material based on information associated with a young person’s account, and/or at least one of the following features while users are logged in:
- endless-feeds (infinite scroll), designed to keep young people engaged for as long as possible by showing new content as you scroll, swipe or flick with no end point
- feedback features (such as displaying the number of ‘likes’ or ‘upvotes’ a user has received), designed to give young people quick, low-effort feedback and create pressure to seek approval and compare themselves to others
- time-limited features (such as disappearing ‘stories’) designed to create urgency so young people check apps constantly out of fear of missing out.
This update provides greater clarity for Australian families about the application of Australia’s world-leading social media minimum age, and ensures the law remains focused on features that drive addictive behaviour and pose the greatest risk of harm to young people.
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The eSafety Commissioner has assessed 10 key platforms as in scope of the SMMA, including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube and Reddit. Each of these platforms expose their users to at least one of the harmful features so eSafety will assess these platforms against the new legislative rule and communicate their view to the providers of the platforms.
“Creating a minimum age to have a social media account is about giving young Australians a break from the pervasive pull of social media,” said Minister for Communications, Anika Wells.
“Since Gen Alpha got their first smartphone and their first social media account, they have been connected to an addictive dopamine drip.”
“Targeted algorithms, doomscrolling, persistent notifications and toxic popularity metres are stealing their attention for hours every day.”
“We’re shining a light on these harmful and addictive features being used to target young Australians.”
The new rule has no impact on platforms eSafety has previously assessed as out of scope (on the basis that they are excluded under the legislative rule made in July 2025), including Discord, Google Classroom, WhatsApp and Roblox.
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