For the better part of a year, YouTube seemed set to be exempt from Australia’s teen social media ban. But it was another social media giant that ended up getting off.
YouTube’s proposed carve-out was officially erased with a government announcement on Tuesday about the imminent registration of regulations that would lay out which platforms would need to take “reasonable steps” to keep 16-year-olds from having accounts.
These rules have been written to target the social media platforms that the government says present the biggest harm to kids, partly those with “persuasive and predatory algorithms targeting our kids”, according to Communication Minister Anika Wells.
Outside of the YouTube exemption strikeout, there were a few other changes to the draft version of the Online Safety (Age-Restricted Social Media Platform) Rules 2025 registered on Wednesday.
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Most prominently, the rules now appear to exclude a social media platform used by 15 million Australians: LinkedIn.
The rules exempt services for “professional networking or professional development”, a new addition since the draft rules circulated earlier this year.
The Microsoft-owned social network had pleaded to be excluded from the ban on the grounds it was “not popular with minors”.
In a submission made to the government’s inquiry into the teen social media ban, the company said its rules do not allow people under the age of 16 to have an account, and argued teens would not have much interest in being on LinkedIn anyway.
“Additionally, LinkedIn simply does not have content interesting and appealing to minors. As noted above, it is entirely professionally focused, providing members the ability to connect and engage on topics relevant to the world of work,” its submission argued.
While the teen social media ban would not have changed its minimum age of 16, LinkedIn’s inclusion would have meant it would still have been required to meet the legal requirement of taking “reasonable steps” to enforce that limit. Exempting it means there is no formal, legal obligation for the company to enforce its own rule. This requirement is expected to also exclude services like GitHub, Indeed and others.
The rules also added an exemption for social media platforms for “sharing information like reviews, technical support, or advice about products or services”.
Additionally, an exemption for “messaging services” — for platforms like WhatsApp — had been tweaked to explicitly include email, voice calling and video calling.
Spokespersons for the communications minister’s office and LinkedIn both declined to comment on these rules.
The release of the rules means the teen social media ban policy process is nearing its end. The only remaining unfulfilled requirement is the eSafety commissioner’s guidelines on what the social media companies’ “reasonable steps” to stop teens from having accounts will entail as of December 10.