Australian teens already planning to dodge the social media ban

Young people are already preparing to thwart Australia’s social media ban on teenagers by using platforms like TikTok to share ideas on how to trick the platforms into letting them stay and find alternative apps.

With two months to go before the government’s “minimum age for social media” or “delay” policy comes into force, young people are already making moves to stay on the platforms, including claiming their accounts are actually managed by their parents, despite companies being required to take “reasonable steps” to restrict access.

Zoe is a 14-year-old teenager living in Sydney and opposes the ban. “I think social media should be safer, a lot of people my age think it should be safer, but pretty much everyone agrees it shouldn’t be banned,” he said over the phone.

The 8th grader has been posting TikTok videos talking about the ban, which have reached hundreds of thousands of views.

In a “get ready with me”-style video, Zoe films herself going through her skincare routine before school while explaining and criticizing the ban. And in a September video viewed more than half a million times, he tells people how to get out of the situation.

His approach, which has become popular among TikTok users, involves trying to convince the platform that a teenager’s account is actually managed by a parent.

Zoe’s video suggests teens replace the email address linked to their social media account with their parent’s email address (or “create an account” if their parent already has an account on that platform) [another email address] for them”). cricket He’s seen dozens of TikTok accounts with phrases like “run by parents” or “shared by account” [child] And [parent]” in their biographies.

Other users recommend changing an account user’s birthday to greater than 16 and avoiding posting on age and age-specific topics.

In Zoe’s case, her parents are involved in the decision to help her avoid the ban (her father, Mark, says the government “shouldn’t have ruled out”). [teens] She says her mother also logs into her TikTok account so she can monitor her usage.

It’s unclear whether other teens using these methods have cooperating parents who knowingly manage their accounts.

Jocelyn Brewer, child psychologist and founder of Digital Nutrition, says that while each platform’s exact approach to checking users’ ages varies and is still unknown, many of the techniques promoted by teens are unlikely to work.

“This won’t do them any good. And if it doesn’t, they’ll get around this problem by going to more treacherous, less secure platforms,” ​​he said.

The government has confirmed that only a handful of platforms will be subject to the ban, so some young people are already offering to use social media websites and apps they believe will be exempt from the ban. Zoe recommends Lemon8, an Instagram clone owned by ByteDance.

Under the teen social media ban law and rules, there is no distinction between teens whose accounts are “managed” or “owned” by a parent.

Platforms like Meta use algorithmic analysis of posted content to flag whether a person is under 16 or not. For example, posting that you are in the 8th grade at school could be a signal. There is no evidence to suggest that declaring that an account is managed by a parent would be sufficient to convince the platform that the user’s account belongs to an adult.

Similarly, changing an account’s details before enforcement to prevent them from being automatically included in the ban may not work either. The eSafety commissioner has told social media companies they must monitor people who change the date of birth on their accounts before the ban comes into force.

The government has said all along that it expected some young people to circumvent the ban.

Parents (or other adults) helping children was raised repeatedly as a possibility during the development of the policy supporting the ban. There are no penalties for young people who manage to circumvent the ban or the parents who make this possible.

While considering how to implement the ban, a model that would officially allow teenagers to have accounts with their parents’ permission was discussed by the government.

Young people like Zoe are under no illusions that these methods will definitely work as a way around the ban.

Instead, Zoe tries to help others understand the law. to be go around it. This includes trying to dissuade other teens from using methods they think won’t work (for example, declaring that your account is managed by parents via the temporary TikTok Stories feature).

“It’s not enough to put it in your stories,” Zoe said.