Thousands of teens kicked off apps find loopholes with fake accounts, VPNs and facial age estimation

As we enter a new era of social media age restrictions, thousands of young Australians have been removed from their favorite apps.

The process of identifying and blocking users under 16 is still subject to progressive technology rollout; This means many people are still logged into TikTok, YouTube or X, either proudly celebrating their machinations in deceiving the regime or hoping to keep a low profile and be ignored. How long they stay there depends on how well they play the cat and mouse game.

rise of alts

Social media companies have had a full year to think about how best to comply with these rules, but that also means younger users who are so prone to them have also had a year to think about how to avoid them. Their main account contains a lot of data that can be used to estimate their age and may even reveal their actual birthday. But it would be trivial to create several alternatives that do not do this.

“As soon as the ban was announced, children and teenagers started creating new accounts with older birth dates,” said Yasmin London, a former police officer and security expert at parental control platform Qustodio.

“They jumped right in and there were thousands of TikToks showing exactly how to do this. A ‘how to’ culture is forming around this. This has now moved to Discord and other platforms not covered by the ban.”

As many adult social media users now know, many users with older birth dates are asked to verify their age.

Just saying you’re an adult isn’t enough to convince apps; Some of these apps track things like preferred content, friends lists, typing speed, scrolling patterns, and language usage to estimate age. Sooner or later, even carefully prepared alts will be asked for verification.

swap faces

This is where centenary age estimation comes into play. Platforms are prohibited from using government ID as the only way for users to prove they are over 16, and many have opted to use selfie scanning technology provided by age assurance companies. However, this technology only estimates the age of a face and sends the result of success or failure to the application; does not attempt to verify that the face belongs to the account owner.

“We’ve heard of kids borrowing devices or using family members to check facial age. Some parents are aware of this, some are not, but either way, it’s a loophole that’s being actively exploited,” London said.

“Some parents are also willing to actively support their children in getting around the ban.”

Even without the help of an adult, this ‘how-to’ culture helps kids discover effective ways to make themselves look older. This includes lighting, head angle, eye position, facial expression, and even accessories. Face prediction techniques are good, but they also need to be fast and avoid leaving out legitimate adults who can be exploited.

new places

There’s been a lot of talk about under-16s using virtual private networks (or VPNs) to avoid social media bans. VPN works by sending your internet activity (all or just certain apps and services) to its destination through a server somewhere else in the world. So if you used a VPN to connect to TikTok, you can make it look like you’re logging into TikTok from the US, France, or somewhere else.

But VPNs can be complicated to set up, especially if you need them on your phone while on the go, and they can interfere with other services. The good ones are expensive, the free ones can be dangerous and blocked at the router level by parental control products like Circle. Platforms can often identify VPN users by tracking known servers and examining data, and some identity companies offer this as part of their age assurance packages. So, assuming social media companies are actively searching for VPN users (and the eSafety authority has asked them to do so), there’s no guarantee they’ll work to get around the ban.

“We appreciate Australia’s efforts to protect young people online. However, such laws are new and we have yet to see how they will play out in practice,” said a spokesperson for NordVPN, adding that it was too early to tell whether the country would see an increase in VPN use.

“Age checks don’t need to be perfect to be effective. Even with a VPN, Facebook could likely identify users as Australian and determine their age, and adults might not need to provide identifying information or undergo further verification. If your Facebook account is 15 years old, you’re almost certainly over 16.”

seeking asylum

If all else fails, there are plenty of other apps that do not actively interfere with users under 16. Lemon8, which comes from the same parent company as TikTok, is currently a popular app among Australian social media refugees, but there are signs it is starting to play by the rules.

Apps that are primarily focused on messaging are exempt from the ban; This means networks may switch to WhatsApp, Discord, Signal or the like to stay in touch, or organize the next attempt to rejoin TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat as they fly under the radar.

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