Australian Evidence Reinforces Prohibition-Era Lessons for Social Media Regulators | American Enterprise Institute
As anyone who has parented a teenager knows, banning something is almost certain to activate the “forbidden fruit” effect, thereby ensuring the banned activity is almost certainly engaged in, and likely at even greater levels than if the ban had never been implemented. Moreover, the effect is not confined to the young; as even casual students of the 1920s Prohibition era know, criminalizing legal access is almost certain to spur a black market even bigger than the original, if the product in question is sufficiently desirable and its consumers are sufficiently determined to access it.
It should therefore come as no surprise that online safety software provider Qustodio is reporting research showing that levels of TikTok access by 13- to 15-year-olds in Australia—where age-gating legislation banning under-16s from some social media platforms has been in effect since December 2025—are almost back to where they were prior to the ban coming into force. Based on anonymized screen time data from 19,000 Australian families, Qustodio found 26 percent of the target group using the app after the ban came into force, compared with 27 percent prior. Moreover, the company reports that more 10- to 12-year-olds are on TikTok now than before the ban was enacted. Usage rates for Instagram and Snapchat are lower than TikTok but have also begun to creep up after falling initially when the ban came into effect. Also unsurprising is that teen use of apps not subject to the ban has increased; for WhatsApp, usage by those age 13–15 has risen from 27 percent to 36 percent in the same period.
Interestingly, Qustodio’s data are almost certainly underreporting the actual extent of usage among the relevant demographics. Its data have been collected only from devices where its parental control software has been installed—presumably by the most concerned and socially aware parent group prepared to pay (the service’s Basic plan is around $60 a year) to safeguard their children’s interests. These parents are the most likely to support the government ban and the endeavors of Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner. What the research tells these parents is that despite best parental and regulatory efforts, their teens are still accessing the forbidden sites. Unfortunately, what Qustodio has not reported is whether the teens in question were on these social media platforms before the age-gating ban or whether banning the forbidden fruit has simply made it more desirable for those who weren’t using it previously. Unfortunately, working with anonymized data comes with some methodological limitations!
Qustodio is also not capturing or reporting usage of virtual private networks masquerading as computers outside Australia to subvert the rules. Neither is it capturing teenage use of covert devices unknown to parents and not containing software controls, access on devices or via accounts of “legal” users who are complicit in facilitating underage access, or usage on devices where parents have chosen not—or have been financially unable—to install Qustodio or any other parental control software (such as Apple’s Screen Time or Family Sharing features). One can only surmise that such activity is likely to exceed or at least match that observed by Qustodio.
It is easy to jump to the conclusion that ongoing underage social media use is due to insufficient effort by the regulated firms to ban teenage users and that stricter age-gating enforcement will lead to lower use. However, useful insights come from parallels with the Prohibition-era ban on the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages as a means of reducing the harm done to society—an experiment now acknowledged to have been unsuccessful. Like the prohibition of alcohol, teen social media bans have explicitly avoided criminalizing consumption in favor of punishing production and distribution instead. Regulating supply does not remove the real underlying demand for the product, though, or prevent enterprising consumers from finding ways to satisfy their demand through entrepreneurial suppliers, existing or new, who are willing to take risks or find novel ways to circumvent the rules.
The Prohibition experience suggests it is counterproductive to focus all regulatory effort on a few high-profile suppliers when demand can easily shift to other, less obvious sources. When even the best-placed guardians and enforcers cannot easily identify, observe, or prohibit access, then heavy-handed supply-side regulations and policing cannot succeed in reducing consumption. If, indeed, the activities concerned are actually incurring harms greater than the social benefits conferred, then locally developed and enforced controls (such as voluntary abstinence or smartphone bans during school hours) addressing more proximate uses may be effective where centralized, global rules fail.
And where demand is significant and harms are nebulous or idiosyncratic, maybe casino-stye regulation will prove more effective and sustainable: Legalize supply, trust the providers to minimize harms where they can, and tax their activities to finance redress of any harms that do arise.
