Teens are easily bypassing Australia’s ban on social media use for children under 16, according to a survey by Zoomer-focused market research company YouthInsight and teen-focused tech accountability group Molly Rose Foundation.
Simply put, the survey says the ban is not keeping the majority of the relevant group of Australian children off social media.
A few things to keep in mind: YouthInsight apparently took this information from an online survey of 1,050 12-15-year-old Australians – which, needless to say, would be unlikely to include kids who were locked out of the internet entirely due to the ban. Moreover, the survey was conducted last month, when the ban was about three months old.
The survey found that more than 60% of children who were social media users before the ban was implemented claimed that they still had access to at least one restricted social media platform. The initial ban includes TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Xx, Snapchat, YouTube, Reddit, Kik, and Twitch.
YouTube, TikTok and Instagram reportedly have half of their users in Australia under the age of 16.
Additionally, two-thirds of survey respondents claimed that the platforms themselves took “no action” to ban them. This means they are not only easily circumventing restrictions; It’s as if there are no restrictions.
The mechanism for the ban is that the tech companies themselves would have to figure out a way to kick youth off their platforms, otherwise be fined the equivalent of US$33 million – at least that’s the theory.
In practice, as of last month, Australia was reporting that 5 million social media accounts had been deactivated or deleted, but it is not happy with the platforms’ compliance. It was considering enforcement action against Meta, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.
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