Simply weeks earlier than Australia’s social media ban for customers below 16 takes impact, the nation’s watchdog, eSafety, has added Twitch to the record of banned platforms.
Pinterest, nevertheless, was excluded, consistent with Australia’s Social Media Minimal Age (SMMA) guidelines.
Twitch will now not enable Australians below 16 to create accounts beginning December 10, a Twitch spokesperson advised TechCrunch. Current accounts for customers below 16 can be deactivated on January 9. Globally, Twitch is open to customers 13 and older, and anybody below the authorized age of maturity of their area will need to have a mum or dad or guardian concerned, the spokesperson mentioned.
Pinterest didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Australia’s eSafety said that Twitch is categorized as an “age-restricted social media platform” as a result of the service is constructed round on-line social interplay and engagement options like live-streaming. Pinterest, then again, is especially used for accumulating pictures and concepts, so it isn’t included within the age-restricted guidelines.
Australia has mentioned its underage social media ban, which can go into impact on December 10, will apply to Meta‘s Fb, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X, YouTube (besides YouTube Children and Google Classroom), Reddit, and the native streaming service, Kick. These platforms can be required to dam account entry for customers below 16, in accordance with a press release by the web regulator.
A couple of yr in the past, Australia handed a legislation banning social media use for kids below 16. On the time, main tech firms like Google and Meta referred to as on the federal government to delay enforcement till the nation completed its age-verification trial.
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The regulator gives a self-assessment software to assist platforms decide if they have to comply with the SMMA guidelines.
Different nations, together with the U.S. and the U.Ok., are taking related steps to manage who sees what content material on the Web, although their approaches differ. Twenty-four U.S. states have up to now enacted age-verification legal guidelines as of August 2025. Utah turned the primary to require app shops to confirm customers’ ages and procure parental consent for minors downloading apps.
The U.Ok.’s On-line Security Act got here into impact in July, mandating social media and different on-line platforms to dam kids’s entry to dangerous content material or face big fines. The U.Ok. requires sturdy age checks for high-risk content material, like self-harm and consuming dysfunction content material, to guard customers below 18.
