India, July 7 -- A new study by Cybersafety Research Center has found that more than half of the child safety features on major social media platforms do not work as promised, raising fresh questions about how well children are protected online.

Alongside this, an Australian study found that social media companies are failing at the very first step of checking users' ages, making Australia's teen social media ban much less effective. Australia introduced a world-first law in December that requires platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube to stop children under 16 from having accounts, according to Reuters.

Under the law, platforms must take "reasonable steps" to check users' ages, and the government has advised companies to use mu...