There are an estimated 440,000 Australian teenagers, aged 13 to 15, on Snapchat. On Instagram, 350,000 of that age group are active users, and on TikTok, 200,000. Even Facebook, not exactly in the spirit of Generation Alpha, has 150,000.

On Wednesday, those numbers are supposed to change dramatically under a landmark law that will require users in Australia to be at least 16 years old to have accounts on those platforms and other social media services.

Parents, researchers and officials around the world will closely follow the rollout of the law, with all its drawbacks. Australia's experience can serve as a model for authorities elsewhere — such as Denmark, the European Union and Malaysia— who plan to impose similar restrictions, or warning about potential pitfalls.

This is how the law is expected to work.

Which social media services are covered by the law?

The platforms currently affected by the law are Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube. Other services widely used by young teenagers were excluded because the Australian eSafety Commissioner considered them to be primarily for messaging or gaming, including: Discord, Messenger, Pinterest, Roblox, WhatsApp and YouTube Kids. Regulators say they will continue to monitor and review the services and could add other apps to the age-restricted list.

How will platforms verify users' ages?

It is up to the respective tech companies to disable younger users through a series of age-verification technologies. age estimation and verification that they have at their disposal, in addition to the age declared by the user themselves. Regulators have said companies can rely on factors such as how long the account has been active; if you interact with other underage users; facial or voice analysis; or activity patterns consistent with the school schedule. now banned in all Australian schools.

The law specifies that platforms cannot require users to provide government ID as the only option to verify their age, in response to concerns about privacy.

What happens if you are not connected to an account?

Underage users will still be able to access posts or videos that are openly available to those who do not have an account. Still, the government says banning children from having accounts will spare them the most harmful design features of apps, such as algorithms or pop-up notifications, that are central to their addictive potential.

What are companies saying?

Tech companies have criticized the law by hasty and poorly designed, and they have said that teenagers will stop benefiting from features they have been introducing to make their platforms a safer place, such as parental controls or specific accounts for teenagers.

The majority have said that they still intend to comply with the law and deactivate hundreds of thousands of accounts belonging to young adolescents.

What are the sanctions?

There are no sanctions for minors or parents who continue to access social networks after the law comes into force. Companies can face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars (about 33 million US dollars) for failing to take reasonable steps to prevent users under 16 from having accounts on their platforms. It has not been publicly clarified when and how these fines will be activated.

What is behind the law?

By promoting the law, Australian authorities have highlighted concern that social media is a vehicle for online bullying, an amplifier of anxiety, a conduit for peer pressure and a tool for potential predators. They have highlighted the experiences of parents who lost their children to mental illness and suicide, which families considered aggravated and facilitated by social media. Officials have insisted on calling it a delay, rather than a ban, comparing it to age restrictions on alcohol, tobacco and driving.

What are teenagers saying?

In a large-scale survey of children aged 9 to 16 by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the country's public broadcaster, the overwhelming majority of teenagers said they did not believe the ban would work and that it didn't seem like a good idea. Three-quarters of the minors surveyed said they intended to continue using social networks. In the weeks before the ban, photo-sharing or messaging apps similar to the restricted services were among the top apps downloaded in Australia.

Two 15-year-olds have filed a constitutionality appeal against the law in the state of New South Wales, arguing that it violates the rights to freedom and participation in the political communication of adolescents.

Victoria Kim is a correspondent for The New York Times in Australia, based in Sydney. Covers Australia, New Zealand and the wider Pacific region.