Australia banned social media for under-16s. Italy just built something Australia’s law doesn’t have: a place for teenagers whose digital habits were already unhealthy before any ban existed.
Florence has opened Italy’s first youth digital addiction centre, and its focus on counselling and community support, rather than restriction, gives Australia a preview of a problem its own law was never designed to solve.
Florence built a clinic, not a ban
The centre, named Discover, opens later this year and will serve people aged 10 to 25 through counselling, media literacy sessions, and referrals into Tuscany’s health system for more serious cases, according to Euronews.
The site includes a dedicated phone-free space and group activities built around in-person contact rather than screens, Euro Weekly News reported. The program runs as a three-year pilot, giving organisers time to measure which forms of support actually reduce compulsive use before expanding the model. Parents, teachers and social workers will also get training to recognise early warning signs.
Italy hasn’t passed a nationwide social media ban. Its bet is that most affected teenagers need structured support to disconnect, not a law that removes the option entirely.
Australia’s law is the reference point other countries measure against
Australia doesn’t have that luxury of choosing between approaches. It already chose restriction, and did so first. On 10 December 2025, Australia became the first country to enforce a minimum age for social media accounts, cutting off access to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, X, Reddit, Twitch, Threads and Kick for under-16s.
Within weeks, the eSafety Commissioner reported that platforms had removed 4.7 million accounts of under-16 users nationwide. That head start has made Australia’s law the standard against which other regulators are being judged, not just a domestic story.
Legal analysts tracking the European Union’s own age-assurance proposals have pointed to Australia’s framework as a likely compliance model for jurisdictions weighing similar rules, including France’s under-15 ban and restrictions under discussion elsewhere. Florence’s centre belongs to that same wave — a European response shaped in part by a debate Australia set in motion.
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Two different fixes for the same problem
The two countries have drawn the line in different places. Australia’s law addresses who gets an account; it says nothing about what to do with young people who already have years of heavy use behind them. That gap is real: the Social Media Minimum Age Act blocks new and existing underage accounts, but includes no counselling or treatment pathway for teens whose habits formed before the rule existed.
Italy’s centre exists specifically for that gap. Neither model replaces the other. Restricting access and treating dependence are separate jobs, and Australia’s experience over the next year will show whether it eventually needs both.
The next scrutiny for Australian tech businesses may target design, not just age
A second shift is already underway within Australia’s own regulatory system, and it matters more to local software and platform companies than anything happening in Florence. In its latest update to the minimum-age rules, eSafety identified specific product mechanics as compliance risks in their own right: infinite-scroll feeds, like- and upvote counters, and disappearing-content formats designed to create urgency.
That’s a shift from regulating who can open an account to regulating how a product is engineered to hold attention.
Australian companies building apps, games or social features should expect scrutiny to follow that same path.
Florence’s clinic changes nothing in Australian law. But it marks the point where the policy conversation moves past access and into what happens to attention once it’s already captured — a shift Australian regulators are already making inside their own rules.
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