More than four in five Australian adults support restricting children's access to social media, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. The finding comes after Australia's minimum-age rule took effect in December, making platforms responsible for keeping children under 16 from holding accounts on covered services.
Pew found 82% support the restrictions, including 51% who strongly support them. The poll asked 2,064 Australian adults from March 30 to April 13, 2026, months after the rule began. It measures public opinion, not whether the policy has reduced harm or prevented children from using the services.
Support differs by age and use
About seven in 10 Australians ages 18 to 29 supported limiting children's access, but that group was roughly divided between strong and milder support. Among adults 65 and older, 89% supported the restrictions, including 68% who strongly supported them.
People who used social media and those who did not were equally likely to favor restrictions, Pew said. Frequency mattered among users: 79% of daily users supported limits, compared with 90% of those who used social media less often. Women were more supportive than men, and adults who viewed social media as bad for Australian democracy were more supportive than those who viewed it as good.
The survey found no overall difference between adults with and without children under 16. It did find stronger support among mothers than fathers of children under 16, and among parents whose children were 10 or younger than among parents with children ages 11 to 15. Pew did not give subgroup margins of error in the article, so small differences should not be read as precise measures.
How Australia's rule works
The Australian eSafety Commissioner says the minimum-age obligation took effect Dec. 10, 2025. Covered services must take reasonable steps to prevent people under 16 from holding accounts. The regulator, not children or their families, holds platforms responsible for compliance. Australia later increased the maximum corporate penalty for failing to take those steps.
The Pew article cites mixed early reports on the restriction's effectiveness. Its survey does not establish how many children still hold accounts or whether the rule changed their well-being.
The policy differs from current U.S. federal law. A separate Pew survey of U.S. adults conducted in May and June found 56% support banning children under 16 from social media sites. Those results describe U.S. adults, not New York residents, and the two countries' surveys should not be treated as a single combined sample.
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