Australia has given the world boomerangs, plastic money and black box flight recorders. Will its ban on social media for under-16s be its next gift?

Australia implemented its ban, complete with robust age verification checks, this week. The EU, noting that all but 3 per cent of youths are online daily, is looking to follow suit, Denmark is already close to doing so. Even in the US, concerns over the addictive nature of social media apps are being aired in courts.

Full-on lobbying by the 10 platforms caught in Australia’s net — including Meta Platforms, Snapchat and TikTok — shows how much is at stake. The trio each claimed between 200,000 and 450,000 youthful Aussie users during a parliamentary hearing in October. At the top end, that’s more than half the estimated population of 11 to 15-year-olds.