The nanny state has taken yet another legendary L. In a glorious display of government incompetence, Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s has completely collapsed just three months after launching. The out-of-touch boomers in parliament thought they could magically delete the internet for teenagers by passing a piece of paper, but the actual results are in, and they are absolutely hilarious.

A brand-new study from the University of Newcastle, published in the BMJ, has revealed that a whopping 85% of Australian teenagers are still scrolling away on the banned apps. Despite the government threat of a total digital lockdown, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are still active on TikTok, Instagram, X, Snapchat, and YouTube. The state tried to lock the door, but forgot that kids actually know how to use computers.

The genius law, which went into effect in December 2025, made Australia the first country to attempt a total state-mandated social media blackout for children. But according to the researchers, who observed 408 adolescents aged 12 to 17, the whole operation resulted in nothing but "limited implementation, incomplete compliance, and substantial circumvention." In other words, the law is a complete and total meme.

How did this happen? It turns out the government’s cutting-edge cybersecurity strategy relied entirely on platforms asking kids "are you sure you're 16?" and requesting a selfie. Tech companies, who obviously want to keep making money, implemented the most superficial "checks" possible. It is the digital equivalent of a security guard who looks the other way while a crowd of teenagers walks right past him.

The statistics from the BMJ study are a beautiful testament to bureaucratic failure. Only 5% of 12- to 13-year-olds and a pathetic 11% of 14- to 15-year-olds were actually forced to upload an official photo ID. The rest were met with basic age-gates, which they bypassed in about two seconds. More than half of the underage kids surveyed didn’t even bother making new profiles—they just kept using their pre-existing accounts.

For the kids who did face actual restrictions, the workaround was incredibly simple. Around 15% of the younger teens and 19% of the older ones just created fake accounts, while a based 3% of them fired up VPNs to completely bypass the geographic blocks. The state tried to play national dad, and they got immediately outsmarted by 13-year-olds who figured out how to change their IP addresses.

The researchers concluded that this multi-million-dollar legislative circus might only be effective for children under the age of eight. Yes, you read that right. The government passed a sweeping national law that only works on toddlers who haven’t learned how to read yet. Once a kid hits double digits, the state has absolutely zero authority.