Three months after Australia’s social media restrictions for people under age 16 came into force, teenagers are circumventing the blocks with virtual private networks and by tricking age verification services, according to the country’s digital regulator.
"Like any age restriction or limit, there are people, particularly creative teenagers, that are definitely doing a good job at getting around these,” Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, said during a UK science, innovation and technology parliamentary committee meeting on Wednesday.
That Australia’s teens are finding ways to access blocked platforms isn’t necessarily surprising, but the country’s enforcement will be closely watched by other nations considering similar social media bans for children. Australia was the first country to roll out such restrictions, sparking a global movement as lawmakers and parents fret about the potential harms facing children online.
Australia’s restrictions affect services such as Meta Platforms Inc’s Instagram and Facebook, Snap Inc, Elon Musk’s X, ByteDance Ltd’s TikTok and Google’s YouTube. Messaging and gaming apps were excluded. About 5 million accounts were shuttered once the law came into effect in December.
The country is now in a "difficult” second phase of the ban, Inman Grant said, and the burden is on the platforms to make sure young users can’t sneak onto their services.
VPNs can disguise a user’s location, enabling them to access locally blocked services. Opponents of social media bans say teenagers will simply use such technology to access social media sites, or turn to shadier, unregulated platforms.
At least 14 countries are considering social media restrictions, according to the lead researcher analysing the impact of Australia’s ban.
"This is the conversation taking place around the world now, and the Australian law has really triggered a lot of these conversations,” said Jeff Hancock, director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, speaking at the UK parliamentary committee meeting.
UK lawmakers voted against a social media ban being enshrined in law on Tuesday. The government is separately consulting on children’s use of digital technology and could still enact a ban in the future.
The push to restrict children’s access to social media coincides with a broader movement to increase age verification online globally, leading to concerns about privacy.
Countries including Australia and the UK have restricted access to adult websites unless users first verify their identity using facial recognition or a scan of government ID. – Bloomberg
