Anika Wells named to TIME100 Next for role in Australia’s social media restrictions

Australian Communications Minister Anika Wells was named to TIME’s 2026 TIME100 Next list on 30 September, with former prime minister Julia Gillard praising her role in the country’s social media minimum-age policy. The recognition brings fresh attention to Australia’s restrictions on accounts for people under 16, whose implementation remains under scrutiny.

Why TIME included Anika Wells

Gillard wrote the testimonial accompanying Wells’s entry. She called Wells a significant voice in a global movement to reconsider the relationship between technology and children’s wellbeing, and credited her with championing reforms intended to protect young people from social media harms. Gillard also pointed to rules supporting Australia’s minimum-age policy among the online safety measures Wells has overseen.

The entry is a tribute by a former Australian prime minister to a serving minister. Gillard described the changes as courageous and praised Wells for remaining steadfast despite opposition from major technology companies. Those are Gillard’s judgments about Wells’s leadership; the profile does not measure whether the restrictions have reduced harm to children.

Wells responded to her inclusion with a team analogy. ‘In Brisbane we know premierships are won by the whole team, not one player,’ she told Guardian Australia. Her comment places the recognition in the context of a broader government effort, even though TIME’s profile names her individually.

How Australia’s under-16 account rules work

That standard makes platform conduct central to judging compliance. In a 31 March update, eSafety identified Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube as platforms about whose compliance it had significant concerns. The regulator said it was gathering evidence for possible enforcement action. It described problems including repeated age checks that could eventually return a result of 16 or older, weak ways to report underage accounts and insufficient steps to stop new accounts from being opened.

Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said an enforcement case would need to establish that a platform had failed to take reasonable steps. The presence of some accounts held by under-16s would not, on its own, establish a breach. That distinction matters when assessing early reports about children who remain on covered services: account ownership and a platform’s compliance with its legal duty are related questions, but the regulator applies a specific test to the latter.

What early evidence says about the restrictions

An eSafety survey of parents and carers of children aged eight to 15, conducted roughly six weeks after the restrictions began, found that account ownership on covered platforms had fallen. It also found that a substantial proportion of children still had accounts. Among children who no longer had accounts, platform-led deactivation was the main reason. For those who continued to have accounts, the most common reason reported was that a platform had not yet asked the child to confirm their age.

The survey provides an early picture of account access reported by families. It does not establish whether the rules have improved children’s wellbeing or reduced the harms Gillard cited in her tribute. Likewise, the March compliance update recorded concerns and evidence gathering, rather than a final finding against the named platforms. TIME’s selection recognizes Wells’s prominence in the debate, while those separate questions about results and enforcement remain open in the cited material.

Political response and what comes next

The recognition has also drawn a response from the opposition. Shadow communications minister Sarah Henderson told Guardian Australia that Australians judge ministers by their actions rather than magazine lists. She repeated her criticism that the social media ban had failed. Her statement is a political assessment; the cited early survey and compliance update do not settle the policy’s eventual effects.

Australia’s oversight framework provides for further scrutiny. According to eSafety, an independent review of the law must begin within two years of its December 2025 commencement. The regulator also records that Parliament passed legislation on 10 September 2026 to strengthen enforcement, including broader information-gathering and examination powers and higher maximum civil penalties. Those steps point to continued attention to how platforms apply the rules after the initial rollout.

For now, the reason for Wells’s place on the TIME list is clear: Gillard credits her with leading prominent online safety reforms that have attracted attention beyond Australia. Whether the account restrictions deliver their intended benefits is a different question, one that requires evidence about children’s experiences and platform conduct beyond an annual list and a testimonial.