Australia said on Wednesday it will add YouTube to sites covered by its world-first ban on social media for teenagers, reversing an earlier decision to exempt the Alphabet-owned video-sharing site and potentially setting up a legal challenge.

YouTube will be included in Australia's world-first social media ban for children under 16, after the government ditched a previous exemption for the platform. The video sharing site was set to be excluded from the ban - which will limit TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X and Snapchat and is due to start in December.

Under-16s won't be allowed to have active YouTube accounts or subscribe to YouTube channels when the federal government's social media ban comes into effect.