On the lawns of the prime minister’s Kirribilli residence in Sydney, overlooking the harbour, Anthony Albanese said he had never been prouder.

“This is a day in which my pride to be prime minister of Australia has never been greater. This is world-leading. This is Australia showing enough is enough,” he said as the country’s under-16s social media ban came into effect on Wednesday.

Albanese pointed to gathered media including those from the BBC, CNN and from Japan. He said the world was watching.

“But Australia is leading.”

The news has indeed turned heads globally.

Some countries have already announced an intention to follow suit, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Denmark and Norway.

Others have been watching with keen interest to answer the question, as Albanese put it: “If Australia can do it, why can’t we?”

The policy to cut off the social media access of more than 2 million under-16s has remained popular with Australians in the 12 months since the legislation was passed, with almost two-thirds of voters in favour of the ban. It has also enjoyed support among the major political parties.

The government was so eager to sell the policy to the world that it spent A$100,000 (£75,000 or $67,000) of public money to send the minister responsible, Anika Wells, to the United Nations in September, a cost that has sparked more than a week of questions in domestic politics.

The momentum was pushed along by a News Corp campaign titled “Let Them Be Kids”, which Albanese called “the most powerful use of print media I have seen for a very long period of time”.

News Corp was handsomely rewarded for its uncritical coverage, with a speaking slot at the launch event, and the slogan beamed onto the pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Wednesday night, as the landmark shone in green and gold.

Support for the ban may be strong, but whether it works will remain a test for the government.

Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Kick, Reddit and Twitch were the first 10 platforms to be asked to comply with the ban. Others have adopted similar measures or are planning to, including Bluesky.

The tech companies were opposed from the outset – YouTube threatened a lawsuit, while Elon Musk’s X did not confirm its participation until the day the ban came into effect. But by Wednesday they all said they were complying.

Although Reddit had agreed to enforce the new restrictions, on Friday it went to the high court seeking to challenge the law on the grounds of freedom of political communication, and the government’s decision that Reddit is covered by the ban.

Companies were left to determine how they would verify ages. The majority opted for a mix of methods, such as facial age estimation, behavioural signals and an option to upload government-issued ID.

But for the vast majority of Australians, the ban came and went with barely a blip – Meta, TikTok, Snapchat and X used signals such as an early account registration date to wave them through.

Even so, when the prime minister posted about the ban on social media on Wednesday his replies were filled with comments from teens who said they had escaped the ban. At a Canberra school visit on Friday, students told him their friends had dodged it.

“They’ll get found out too,” Albanese replied.

Google searches for the ban were up 700% in Australia in the first two days after it came into effect, while searches for VPNs and how to avoid age verification also spiked, though at a fraction of the volume.

The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said on Wednesday there would be stories of children escaping the ban but it would not deter the government.

“These isolated cases of teenage creativity, circumvention … and other ingenious ways that people will push boundaries will continue to fill newspaper pages, but we won’t be deterred, we’re playing the long game,” she said.

Although it appears it has been a mostly smooth launch, the real test will be in the years ahead.

On Thursday, Inman Grant issued notices to the 10 platforms, requesting user numbers as of 9 December and 11 December. The government will release that data to confirm under-16s accounts have been removed – and those users prevented from registering new ones.

Meanwhile, the online safety regulator will be tracking other data for signs of mental health improvements in teens, and any changes in school test scores. A review of the law is penciled in for 2027.

Legal challenges to the ban loom next year. As well as the Reddit case, a digital rights group are separately seeking to have the high court rule on whether banning teens from social media infringes on their implied freedom of political communication.

Guardian readers have expressed mixed feelings about the ban.

“It’s nice to have the [children] present in the house again,” one parent said.

But another made a point that has been echoed by many others over the past week: “There are young people out there, isolated both physically and literally, living in small towns or regional communities, who potentially will miss out on online support.”

Wayne Holdsworth – a Melbourne father who campaigned for the law after his son, Mac, took his life after being bullied online – said the ban, with education, would equip teens to be able to handle social media when they join at 16.

“Our kids will be looking down with pride, with the work that we’ve done, we have only just started,” he said.