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A new law in Australia aims to ban social media accounts for young people under age 16.

On December 10, 2025, young Australians with accounts on TikTok and Snapchat will wake up and find their profiles gone. Australia has banned young people under age 16 from having social media accounts as part of its new social media usage policy.

Australia’s government passed the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill about a year ago to protect Australian children and teens from the harmful effects of social media, such as cyberbullying and mental health struggles.

“We want our kids to have a childhood and parents to know we have their backs,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese after the policy was passed.

The law says young people cannot use the platforms even with parental consent. The government expects all platforms to deactivate user accounts for those under the age of 16 when the law goes into effect on December 10. This includes popular platforms YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, as well as TikTok and Snapchat.

The law is going into effect just as a new study confirms that preteens who use social media struggle with reading, vocabulary, and memory more than peers who do not use social media. The research shows that even low levels of social media use negatively impact brain development.

Experts say time outdoors can benefit young people.

Still, many Australians criticize the ban, including young entrepreneurs and musicians who use social media to market products and art. They say the ban will prevent young people from starting a business.

“The only other way I could think that you could start a business and grow your business without social media would be having a website and using things such as Google marketing,” said Isabelle Hedditch in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Hedditch was 15 when she started her online dress rental business. “But [when I was] 15 years old, there was no way I could afford that.”

Other experts highlight social media benefits that help young people find community and seek out mental health care.

Did You Know?

The first all-electronic computer was enormous! Completed in 1946, the computer was about the size of a volleyball court and weighed 27 tons. That’s the weight of five elephants combined!

Computer operators program the first electronic computer.

A Floppy Rescue

A floppy disk is placed into a computer that dates back to 1989.

Have you ever wondered what the icon on the “save” button on your computer programs is supposed to be? It’s a floppy disk! Once an important piece of data storage technology, the floppy disk is now outdated, making it difficult to retrieve saved files from one. Archivists at the University of Cambridge are now in a race against time to save floppy disk files from the digital dark ages.

Popular in the 1970s through the 1990s, floppy disks were used to store computer files and software. This tech revolutionized work and computing by making it possible for different computers to exchange information. Today, the Internet has given us new ways to store and share digital information—and the valuable information saved on floppy disks is at risk.

“This stuff is not going to last forever,” said Leontien Talboom, a technical analyst at Cambridge University, in an interview with the BBC. “Ten years ago, it would have been easier. But a lot of [the technology] is disappearing.”

Talboom leads a project called Future Nostalgia, aimed at extracting information from floppy disks, plus preserving the disks and hardware needed to read them. For example, Cambridge recently acquired floppy disks from the late Stephen Hawking, the groundbreaking physicist who studied black holes and the beginnings of the universe.

Future Nostalgia is working to extract not only Hawking’s files but also those from many other saved floppies so that these digital memories can be preserved.

Spam! Spam! Spam!

Spam email (left) and a can of SPAM

Spam is the term used for an unwanted marketing text or email. But what are the origins of this marketing scheme, and what does it have to do with the ham-like food called SPAM? Find out at Britannica!

WORD OF THE DAY

archaic

PART OF SPEECH:

adjective

Definition:

: old and no longer used

Definitions provided by

Sudoku

Fill every row, column, and 3×3 box with the numbers 1 through 9 with no repeats in any row, column or box.

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