According to a survey by the zoomer-focused market research company YouthInsight along with the Molly Rose Foundation, a teen focused tech accountability group, teens are easily bypassing Australia’s ban on social media use for kids under 16.
Put simply, the survey says the ban just isn’t keeping the majority of the relevant cohort of Australian kids off social media.
Some things worth keeping in mind: YouthInsight apparently drew this information from an online survey of 1,050 12–15-year-old Australians—which, needless to say, would be unlikely to include any kids who were driven off the internet entirely by the ban. Also, the survey was conducted last month, starting when the ban was about three months old.
The survey found that more than 60% of kids who were social media users before the ban was enacted claimed to still have access to at least one banned social media platform. The initial ban consists of TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Snapchat, YouTube, Reddit, Kick and Twitch.
YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram have reportedly retained half their under-16 users in Australia.
Also, two-thirds of survey respondents claimed the platforms themselves have taken “no action” to ban them. That means they’re not just easily bypassing the restrictions; it’s like there are no restrictions at all.
The mechanism for the ban is that the tech companies themselves have to figure out a way to boot young people from their platforms, or else be subject to fines equivalent to 33 million American dollars—that’s the theory at least.
In practice, as of last month, Australia was reporting that 5 million social media accounts had been deactivated or removed, but that it wasn’t happy with compliance from the platforms. It was considering enforcement actions against Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube.
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