As New Zealand plans a social media ban for teens, is Australia's one actually working?

Explainer: Australia launched the world's first ban on teenagers using social media a little more than six months ago. As New Zealand contemplates its own ban, how has it actually worked out across the ditch?

Governments around the world from Britain to Canada are now looking at ways to curtail social media use by children.

Australia's ban kicked off the push at the end of last year. What does the data say so far about how successful it's been? Here's what you need to know.

But first, where are our own plans for a ban?

Temporarily stalled, but that could change quite soon.

National has been pushing for a social media ban for under-16s but plans have been put on hold as there have been concerns that coalition partners ACT and New Zealand First won't support it.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has said he is "deeply supportive" of a ban, telling NewsTalk ZB he would "die trying to do something".

A draft bill and paper has been circulating and support from Labour is now being sought to get it over the line, Stuff has reported.

With November's election rapidly coming up, it is unclear whether any legislation would get started before then.

But Australia has been the test case, with its ban in place for more than six months.

So how well has Australia's ban gone?

The results are mixed, based on early government reports and academic studies.

"Australia is leading the world in our efforts to keep kids and young people safe online," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement, while acknowledging there was more to be done.

"I'm heartened by the shift in conversation and the global momentum we've seen since introducing the social media minimum age, but it's clear big tech are not doing enough to comply with the law - there are still too many children on social media."

It banned under-16s from having accounts on 10 platforms - Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit and streaming platforms Kick and Twitch. Other companies have voluntarily agreed to restrict age, according to the eSafety commissioner's office.

The ban put the onus on social media companies to take "reasonable steps" to exclude children and use age verification technologies.

The government has said that more than five million under-16s accounts have been removed, deactivated or restricted since the ban began, although it has also noted individuals may have multiple accounts across multiple platforms or started new accounts after being kicked off.

The ban relies heavily on social media platforms to police their own users by declaring their age, using their data to determine age or by uploading a photo.

Studies show youth finding it easy to get around bans

One of the first academic analyses of the ban was in a study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in late June found 85 percent of under-16s surveyed were still using social media.

The study found daily social media use stayed the same among 12-13 year olds, reduced from 78 to 69 percent in 14-15 year olds, and increased by 9 percent in those aged over 16.

A smaller percentage used fake accounts, while the use of VPNs to route web access to outside countries was "rarely reported," the BMJ study said.

"Little evidence was found of immediate substantive reductions in reported social media use by adolescents under 16 years," that research concluded.

Western Sydney University professor Tanya Notley led another study on the impacts of the ban, and told RNZ Nights recently that many were still using the platforms.

"The vast majority of young people are still using social media, most probably in the same way as they were before the ban."

"Everyone's getting around it," Giselle, 16, said.

Youth who talked to the ABC said that face-scanning technology was riddled with pitfalls or easily tricked, while many youth weren't asked to verify their ages at all.

In March, Australia's eSafety commissioner released a report that found as many as seven in 10 children reportedly retained accounts three months after the ban started, and criticised social media platforms for not doing enough to verify age.

In the report, eSafety also said it was investigating non-compliance by Snap, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

Reuters reported that another study by a team that advised the government's rollout found that platforms did not ask for age proof on any of 50 accounts that were opened after the law came into force and which declared the applicant's age as 16.

"You should be asked to demonstrate how old you are, and not once have we been asked to verify our age or use age-assurance measures," said Andrew Hammond, director at testing firm KJR.

"What we are now seeing is that circumvention has become the go-to by young people," Colm Gannon, Australia chief executive of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, told Reuters.

Will Australia toughen up the ban?

Six months in, the Labor government has announced plans to beef up the ban, including increasing the maximum penalties for companies that fail to prevent under-16s from accessing their platforms will double from A$49.5 million (NZ$60m) to A$99 million (NZ$120m).

"There are still too many children on social media," Albanese said.

New laws will compel social media companies to provide evidence of what they have done to stop under 16s from getting an account. They will also be able to gather information from third parties like age assurance or app-store providers as part of this evidence.

The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant, has expressed frustration, telling the Sydney Morning Herald recently that "a regulator is only as good as the tools and the resources that they're given."

"Big tech wants this to fail, you know," Communications Minister Anika Wells told the ABC.

"It is clear to me that social media platforms are adopting tricks straight out of the big tech playbook and doing the bare minimum to get by," Wells also said in a statement.

What are other countries planning to do?

Britain announced last month it would bring in its own ban on youth using social media sites, which will go further than Australia by also restricting gaming, chatbots and livestreaming platforms.

The UK has said it is "examining the Australian model closely".

Spain is advancing legislation to ban social media for under-16s, while Malaysia and Turkey have already introduced similar bans.

Other countries that plan to introduce bans include Canada, France and Germany.

There are many lingering questions about how these bans will work - if they'll follow the Australian model so far of mostly letting the platforms police themselves, or introduce stronger measures such as a government ID or requiring all adults and children to verify their ages before using certain sites - which runs up against issues of privacy and security.

Turning the focus back here, New Zealand First expressed concerns about "the use of digital ID to enforce the law" in posts on its official social media accounts this week.

There were also reports that the government was possibly considering curtailing VPN access as part of a ban, but Prime Minister Luxon and Education Minister Erica Stanford both denied those claims to media on Tuesday.

ACT leader David Seymour also condemned that idea, saying in a statement that "if the government responds by restricting VPNs, it is no longer regulating children's access to social media, it is regulating how every New Zealander uses the internet".

What else have we learned from the Aussie ban?

A study from Western Sydney University did find that 26 percent of young Australians age 10 to 16 were affected by the ban, but also found that more than half of that group were getting less news as a result.

Notley, who was the leader of the study, looked specifically at news engagement.

"Social media is now the most common source of news after family and personal sources," she told RNZ. "It's also the preferred source for teenagers now and that's been recognised across several surveys now."

Notley said she is worried civic engagement could suffer and the lure of disinformation could rise as a result of the ban.

"I think that's a real concern that we need to think about."

Others have pointed out that it may take years to see true results from social media bans.

"The ban should be considered over a longer timeframe," University of Queenland public health researcher Samuel Cornell wrote for The Conversation.

"Its logic is more aligned with another form of public health law: the generational approach now being applied to tobacco control.

"If access is delayed long enough, social media might lose its grip on childhood the way cigarettes slowly did."