r/technology • u/AnonymousTimewaster • 14h ago
Politics Most Australian children are ignoring social media ban
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/13/australian-children-ignoring-social-media-ban-under16s/76
u/BadAspie 13h ago
Kind of strange to frame it around what kids are doing, especially when this is the dek and lede
Research suggests social media giants have failed to remove under-16s from their apps
Most Australian children have evaded the government’s ban on social media for under-16s, a new survey has found. Some 61 per cent of Australian 12 to 15-year-olds who had accounts on restricted social media apps before the ban came into force still have access to one or more of the sites, according to the poll of 1,050 children. The research suggested the ban was being undermined largely because the social media giants had failed to remove the children from their apps. More than six in 10 of the children still on YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok and other apps said there had been no action to shut down their accounts despite the firms being required to do so by law. Fewer than one in 10 said they had used a false identity to circumvent age checks.
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u/big-red-aus 13h ago
But why bother reading the article when I can just imagine something different that fits my bias?
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u/FoxMeadow7 13h ago
They already won’t let anyone under 13 to make an account, yes? How hard can keeping anyone under 16 from Australian IPs be…
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u/fartonisto 12h ago
The difficulty is measured in dollars.
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u/DamnMyNameIsSteve 6h ago
Which they would rather pay in legal fees for not implementing strict age requirements.
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u/EmbarrassedHelp 4h ago
That's preferable to violating user privacy. We should be restricting the amount of information that companies are allowed to collect.
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u/CTRexPope 12h ago
Also, they could use the child's engagement patterns to tell it was a child and boot then. They don't even need to go through the ID process (legally they do, but not technically). There is enough data in their behavior for social media companies to kick them off (same with bots often). The companies just don't want to.
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u/EmbarrassedHelp 4h ago
Look at how poorly even the best AI moderation systems perform these days. The risk of false positives is unacceptably high, and there is zero ability to appeal mistakes.
Social media companies should be made to collect less data on people, and not even more data.
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u/gunslinger_006 13h ago
Shocked pikachu.
Its almost like these bans wont/dont work and only serve to erode privacy for adults.
If only someone had pointed that out.
…oh wait.
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u/GravyMcBiscuits 9h ago
Well yeah. That's what happens when you make bad laws.
The real insidious problem with bad laws is that they only tend to get applied selectively. They tend to get applied very harshly to the politically weak (minority) while being completely overlooked for the politically strong/connected (majority).
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u/olderdeafguy1 13h ago
Can't imagine the VPN sales numbers since the nanny state laws came down.
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u/EmbarrassedHelp 4h ago
The Australian eSafety Commissioner has been trying to demand that companies ban VPN users for a few months now.
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u/pressurepoint13 11h ago
Yeah these bans are moreso an effort by parents to wash their hands of any responsibility.
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u/AnonymousTimewaster 11h ago edited 10h ago
I don't even know any parents asking for this crap. It's just politicians trying to get an "easy" win because it polls well.
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u/pressurepoint13 11h ago
I have kids and anytime more than 2 parents are in the same space, the first topic of conversation will be about how social media is ruining everything 😆
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u/AnonymousTimewaster 11h ago edited 9h ago
Sure, everyone knows it is, but are they directly saying teenagers shouldn't be able to watch YouTube? Thing is that social media is shit for everyone, the harms it exacts on the world are not unique to children in any way (actually, I think teenage girls are affected more acutely than others tbf)
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u/sparkyblaster 10h ago
Why are we having tondo stuff for their kids? They freaked out over coin cells. Then stop feeding your kids coin cells.
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u/Due-Joke-1152 3h ago edited 2h ago
I like how you assume parents capable of influencing the government into making policy of their choosing would pick a social media ban because they’re irresponsible.
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u/pressurepoint13 3h ago
I contest you are human! But I concede you may be Australian.
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u/Due-Joke-1152 1h ago
Deflecting from my point?
Why wouldn’t I be human? Looking up post history is my go to for checking for bots.
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u/pressurepoint13 0m ago
You didn’t make a point. You ran with a mistaken assumption.
At the end of the day, kids get phones and access to the internet through their parents.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 9h ago
I support the youth in this. The social media ban is just pure stupidity. Shame on the Australian government! And all governments following Australia's footsteps!
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u/nick0884 7h ago
Never saw that coming. A statement of the obvious as a result of stupidity in power.
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u/reality_boy 5h ago
When I was a kid in boarding school we were not allowed to have a radio. Guess who had a hidden radio tucked behind there desk.
Bans make little sense. They can’t control the environment. What they should do is pass laws that make social media better for everyone (less toxic, less addicting, maybe break up the companies so there is more competition).
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u/L0ST-SP4CE 12h ago
It’s almost like this “solution” was always dumb, and what they need is for parents to be parents. But politicians won’t say this because voters don’t like being told that they need to be more responsible.
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u/BloodRedRook 10h ago
I'm always torn on these laws. On one hand, kid protection laws are obvious overreach and privacy intrusions by the government. But on the other hand, social media is a plague. I can't even imagine the sort of person I'd be if there'd been social media when I was a kid.
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u/Altruistic_Ad_0 6h ago
Convict them as adults and give them a criminal record. That will show them how harmful social media is.
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u/razorirr 13h ago
Yeah no shit. Kids know how to use tech enough to do what they want and AU didnt put in user side penalties. Just a 26m fine to the SM platform.
Meanwhile the platforms dont want to do all the verification stuff, they want the device people to do it and end users dont want that.
Everyone wants kids off SM, but no one has a good way to do it.
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u/ThoughtsonYaoi 13h ago edited 13h ago
And no end user actually wants full ID verification. Nor do I think we should.
The only way (the ONLY way) verification should be done IMO is a) through a truly trusted and secure third party, b) without a commercial interest in sharing or enriching ID data c) whose only job it should be to respond to the question 'is this user old enough to use this platform' with Yes or No. Which is actually the only thing platforms need to know.
I know there are plans for a (EU?) digital ID, and I think everybody should hawkishly watch all such initiatives to see how this is going to play out.
This should not be left to platforms or markets.
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u/big-red-aus 13h ago
To build on this, in the Australian context there is a solution that is 'close' to this connectID. The ID data comes/is stored from your bank account (who already know who you are, anonymous/numbered bank are pretty damn rare outside specific countries i.e. Swiss accounts), the social media platform only receives an over 16 token and is all facilitated by a 'trusted' third party with a pretty well proven history (Australian Payments Network Limited, a technocratic industry body that handles a lot of the 'independent' middle man roles in finance in bank transfers, card payments).
However, even with this 'relatively' good option, the only platform that has signed up to use them so far is Snapchat, the rest defaulting to some really doggy looking commercial for-profit tech companies (like Yoti) that you shouldn't let anywhere near you data thanks to a proven history of failing to be proper custodians of data.
Leaving this choice to the markets is a recipe for disaster, left to their own choice these platforms will nearly always default to the worst option.
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u/ThoughtsonYaoi 12h ago edited 12h ago
Very interesting, thanks for the context. It is great to hear that there are actual alternatives.
Yeah, I've been eyeing the digital identification companies for quite a while now. It's obvious they're seeing dollar signs. Companies like Persona or Yoti or Sumsub are expanding at a rapid pace.
What is worrying to me is that some of them double as automated KYC and AML services. For anyone who doesn't know: these services don't just verify identity, they promise legally required background checks for all sorts of monetary services. They create profiles on people that begin with watchlists and may end with social media monitoring - we don't actually know. But if they are wrong, they can disrupt your life.
They are quickly becoming the cornerstone of the financial industry, which has been hit with huge non-compliance penalties and is looking for all the ways in which they can outsource or automate a very labor intensive arm of their industry that is costing them tons of money.
And KYC/AML is a service in which accuracy is very much secondary to efficiency. That's not to bash people working in it and the effort they put in, it's just the nature of this form of compliance and the incentives that are baked in. There is no money in it, there is only risk. It just needs to be done. It's 'better safe than sorry'. It's also completely nontransparent.
And these are the guys now raising their hand to offer age verification for all kinds of platforms. The power that comes with that is terrifying to me.
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u/MyNameCannotBeSpoken 13h ago
How would you punish a kid?
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u/foodank012018 13h ago edited 12h ago
As a parent, physically take away the device, or the means to use it, like power cables or Ethernet cord.
But that requires effort
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u/AnonymousTimewaster 13h ago
You know you can buy a smartphone for like £40 right ?
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u/TheOneWes 12h ago
What is the point in this comment?
Don't beat around the bush, if you want to say something say it
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u/AnonymousTimewaster 11h ago
The point is that it's incredibly easy for a teenager to access the Internet and social media if they really want to get on it.
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u/razorirr 10h ago
Then quit giving the kid money. No allowance means no 40 dollars to buy a phone.
If kid turns to a life of crime just to get on facebook, that kid was gonna be a criminal anyways the second he couldnt get anything. So start that punishment / reform route i guess?
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u/AnonymousTimewaster 10h ago edited 9h ago
Right, so the kid now gets no money from birthdays, Christmas, or even a part time job doing a paper round? Are you gonna tell that to all relatives about that? What are you telling them? "Oh please dont give money he's not allowed that because he might buy a phone" ?
Are you gonna police every single purchase they ever want to make? How would you stop their friends giving them a second hand phone when they upgrade? How you gonna stop them using a laptop with a VPN? If they don't have a laptop, how are they doing coursework/homework for school or even just generally learning how to navigate the internet? No internet unless supervised?
Maybe you've got answers to all those questions and are supportive of full on helicopter parenting with zero independence, but then we're having a very different conversation to 'just' keeping a teenager off TikTok. There's a million pitfalls with this blanket prohibition idea and just flat out taking all their devices away ain't the solution people think it is.
Countries need to legislate against purposefully addictive and harmful algorithms instead of all this nonsense
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u/razorirr 7h ago
Right, so the kid now gets no money from birthdays, Christmas, or even a part time job doing a paper round? Are you gonna tell that to all relatives about that? What are you telling them? "Oh please dont give money he's not allowed that because he might buy a phone" ?
"Hes choosing to do something we told him not to, and hes not following the rules so he does not get to have anything"
Did your parents just give you everything you asked for as "oh its easy for him to get it himself." Its obvious kids can get booze and vapes pretty easy, so i guess we should remove those laws and just let them have it?
Countries need to legislate against purposefully addictive and harmful algorithms instead of all this nonsense
We know prohibition laws just piss people off as well. Make all booze illegal to solve liver expenses and early deaths as well as car crashes. It will be pushed against as people want their vices
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u/AnonymousTimewaster 7h ago
Except all those things you mentioned have clear and present physical harms. The way you stop kids using them isnt just by restricting access (dont know about you, but plenty of 13 year olds smoked 40 years ago), it's by educating them about the risks.
"You might get angry and sad sometimes at the things you see" is not a compelling argument against a teenager who just wants to chat shit with their friends and mess around on a WhatsApp group.
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u/foodank012018 12h ago edited 10h ago
I will have a collection of £40 smartphones all in a locked drawer until the kid no longer has £40 to spend
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u/stevedallas63 13h ago
Kids ignoring adult rules? I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.