Spin Cycle welcomes Guardian tech reporter Josh Taylor to ask whether Australia’s under-16 social media ban is actually working. More than 4.7 million accounts were removed or restricted after the laws took effect on 10 December 2025, but Josh points to a messier reality underneath, with reporting suggesting that two-thirds of Australian teenagers remain on platforms covered by the ban.

He discusses how easily young users have been able to bypass age-estimation systems, and points to Roblox as a revealing case. While not formally covered by the ban, the platform has introduced its own age-assurance measures, including age-based groupings and chat limits for younger users. This opens onto larger questions regarding accuracy, privacy, and whether stricter enforcement could push platforms toward more intrusive identity checks.

The discussion widens to what happens next: whether fines will be issued, whether platforms will meaningfully change their systems, and why governments around the world are watching Australia’s “world-first” experiment so closely.