AustraliaOnline Safety (Age-Restricted Social Media Platforms) Rules 2025
Online Safety (Age-Restricted Social Media Platforms) Rules 2025 (Cth) F2025L00889, made under the Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth), as amended by the Online Safety (Age-Restricted Social Media Platforms) Amendment Rules 2026 (Cth)
In force since .
A social media and minors rule binding private bodies.
- Audit expectation
- none
What it requires
- These Rules set no duty of their own: they exclude specified categories of service from the age-restricted social media platform definition, so the section 63D under-16 account rule does not apply to them. Since a service is an age-restricted social media platform only if it also has a recommender feature or a logged-in feature.
- You need not apply the under-16 account rule if your service is an excluded category: messaging and communication services, online gaming services, professional networking and development services, or services primarily for education or health support.
- eSafety guidance treats messaging apps, most gaming platforms and services such as Discord, Roblox, Steam, WhatsApp and YouTube Kids as out of scope.
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
eSafety Commissioner
Settledness
- As of
- Open questions
- Does a service that offers online games alongside a feed of user posts have 'the sole or primary purpose of enabling end-users to play online games with other end-users' under paragraph 5(1)(b) of the Online Safety (Age-Restricted Social Media Platforms) Rules 2025?
What it reaches
Age threshold
16
Covered services
Excludes messaging and communication services, online gaming services, professional networking and development services, and services primarily for education or health support. eSafety guidance treats messaging apps, most gaming platforms and services such as Discord, Roblox, Steam, WhatsApp and YouTube Kids as out of scope.
What it makes you log
Logging duty
The Rules only specify which services count as age-restricted social media platforms and which classes are excluded; they set no duty of their own. The record-related and retention provisions sit in Part 4A of the Online Safety Act 2021, which the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 inserted.
- Kind
- None
- As of
What this law does
Legislative instrument made by the Minister for Communications, registered on and commencing on , that excludes specified categories of service from the age-restricted social media platform definition, so the section 63D minimum age obligation (which itself commenced ) does not apply to them. The Online Safety (Age-Restricted Social Media Platforms) Amendment Rules 2026 commenced on .
They add a further condition for a service to be an age-restricted social media platform: it must have a recommender feature, a logged-in feature, or both.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app operates a social platform.
Back to the example · Lint your app
Page updated .