IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ajk/ajkpbs/072.html

Why Bans Fail: Tipping Points and Australia’s Social Media Ban

Author

Listed:
  • Leonardo Bursztyn

    (University of Chicago & NBER)

  • Angela Duckworth

    (University of Pennsylvania)

  • Rafael Jiménez-Durán

    (Bocconi University, IGIER, CEPR, CESifo, & Stigler Center)

  • Aaron Leonard

    (University of Chicago)

  • Filip Milojević

    (University of Chicago)

  • Christopher Roth

    (University of Cologne, ECONtribute, NHH Norwegian School of Economics, MPI for Behavioral Economics, & CEPR)

  • Cass R. Sunstein

    (Harvard Law School)

Abstract

Four months after Australia banned under-16s from major social media platforms, only about a quarter of affected teenagers comply, and the way the ban is designed makes that share more likely to erode than to grow. In December 2025, Australia became the first country to ban under-16s from holding accounts on major social media platforms, and comparable legislation has since been adopted, drafted, or proposed in more than a dozen other countries. We surveyed roughly two thousand Australian teenagers four months after the ban took effect. Compliance is low, around 25%, and is unlikely to consolidate. Teenagers say they would need roughly two-thirds of their peers to comply before complying themselves, and they perceive compliers as less popular than non-compliers. Sustaining higher compliance will require pairing the ban with instruments that act on social norms and individual incentives directly.

Suggested Citation

  • Leonardo Bursztyn & Angela Duckworth & Rafael Jiménez-Durán & Aaron Leonard & Filip Milojević & Christopher Roth & Cass R. Sunstein, 2026. "Why Bans Fail: Tipping Points and Australia’s Social Media Ban," ECONtribute Policy Brief Series 072, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:ajk:ajkpbs:072
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econtribute.de/RePEc/ajk/ajkpbs/ECONtribute_PB_072_2026.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2026
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Leonardo Bursztyn & Jan Fasnacht & Benjamin R. Handel & Rafael Jiménez-Durán & Aaron Leonard & Filip Milojević & Christopher Roth & Cass R. Sunstein, 2026. "Non-User Externalities," NBER Working Papers 35279, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • L51 - Industrial Organization - - Regulation and Industrial Policy - - - Economics of Regulation

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ajk:ajkpbs:072. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ECONtribute Office (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.econtribute.de .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.