Australia has very much moved from “how it started” into the “how it’s going” phase of its social media ban for under-16s. Various studies have suggested that the ban hasn’t been greatly effective, largely because teens have found ways around the restrictions — not that hard when some platforms only require a self-declaration of a user’s age.
The Australian government has now offered up its first report on the initial impact of the ban. It roughly aligns with those studies, with the data indicating the restrictions have had a limited impact early on. There are some interesting findings in the report, though, especially in light of many other countries moving forward with similar bans.
The eSafety Commissioner, the country’s online safety regulator, is carrying out a two-year study into the outcomes of the ban by following more than 4,100 children and families. The first data it’s reporting was obtained in March, three months after the rules came into effect.
The report found that the percentage of under-16s in Australia who had an account on an age-restricted platform dropped from 52.4 percent to 42.1 percent. There was a dip across most services, though the proportion of under-16s with a Reddit account stayed consistent at 3.6 percent, and the figures grew on Threads (up from 1.5 to two percent) and Kick (up from 0.2 to 0.6 percent). A third reported that they had an account shut down or deactivated because of the ban.
However, lots of Australian children are still using social media platforms even if they don’t have an account. The percentage of those who accessed an age-restricted social media service three months into the ban stood at 81.5 percent, down just 4.4 percent from before the law took effect.
The services currently restricted under the rules are Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube. Many of those don’t require an account to view content and watching a YouTube video or Twitch stream would count as using a social media platform. In March, 73.6 percent of children aged 10 to 15 reported that they accessed YouTube in the previous four weeks and at least a quarter used TikTok, Snapchat and/or Instagram.
There was increased usage of some platforms that aren’t currently covered under the law. The proportion of children using Pinterest grew from 16.6 to 21.8 percent, while the figure for BeReal increased from 0.2 to 2.2 percent. Mastodon went from zero reported usage to 0.7 percent.
The report claims there was “a statistically significant decline in children feeling as though they were missing out by not having social media.” That proportion dropped from 43.3 to 36.3 percent.
“A small proportion of children” (i.e. under nine percent, according to the methodology) said they felt less connected to their peers, found it harder to communicate or missed social media, among other challenges. On the other hand, the report claimed that other kids felt the ban benefited them in several ways, such as feeling safer online and having improved relationships.
In addition, the report found that there was a decline in parents’ awareness of how children used social media. This was most prevalent in relation to girls and children aged between 10 and 12.
“As I have said consistently since the start, complex reform of this nature is unwinding 20 years of social media entrenchment and will therefore take time. The impact of the law will not be measured in weeks or months but over generations,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant wrote in a blog post. While the data showed the ban is “beginning to have an effect,” Grant added that the stats “strongly suggest providers were not effectively preventing under-16s from having accounts on their platforms in the first three months.”
Australia recently announced larger penalties for platforms that are breaking the law. Half of the children in the study said an age-restricted platform they used had not yet asked them to verify how old they were. Just over 37 percent said the age listed on their account was over 16, 18.2 percent said the platform got their age wrong and around 11 percent said their parents helped them get around age restrictions. Moreover, 7.4 percent said they used a VPN to get around restrictions.
Meanwhile, the ban led more kids to use messaging services (52.3 percent, up from 40.5) and play video games (29 percent, up from 26.4) in the first three months of the ban. The report also indicated “there was no statistically significant change in the frequency with which children reported having used AI chatbots, assistants or companions.”
