As teens flee to new apps to avoid social media ban, Wells says she’ll ban those too

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Communications Minister Anika Wells says social media companies should prepare for $50 million fines if they haven’t managed to kick children off their platforms within six months, but conceded some children will retain access to their accounts in the meantime, while others go to new apps.

Wells also said she would not hesitate to ban additional tech platforms if trends keep showing a surge in downloads for alternative social media apps, such as Yope and Lemon8.

Anika Wells is setting expectations for day one of the government’s social media ban.

As the Albanese government readies for scrutiny when its social media ban for under 16s comes into effect on December 10, Wells will on Wednesday give an address to the National Press Club to temper expectations about its first few months.

“The question you’re all desperate to know the answer to – who is getting slapped with the first $50 million fine on 10 December? The bureaucrats in the room will back me up here – but regulation rarely acts fast, and certainly not that fast,” she will say in the speech.

The eSafety Commission will next week send notices to the 10 tech companies on its ban list, asking how many underage accounts they had registered on December 9, before the law started, and how many remained on December 11, the day after the ban’s commencement.

Snapchat, for example, has flagged to Senate estimates it has 440,000 underage users, while TikTok said it has 200,000. “Those platforms will have time to reply, before the next round of information requests are sent out asking for updated figures every month for six months,” Wells will say.

“The government recognises that age assurance may require several days or even weeks to complete fairly and accurately. However, if eSafety identifies systemic breaches of the law, the platforms will face fines of up to $49.5 million.”

There are about 2.5 million eight- to 15-year-olds in Australia, according to 2021 census data, and the government estimates 86 per cent of people in the age bracket use social media.

Tech platforms that will be required to comply on the start date are Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit and streaming platforms Kick and Twitch. Some have already started telling users their accounts have been flagged for removal.

But as children start flocking to other apps – photo-sharing service Yope and TikTok-linked platform Lemon8 are surging up the list of Australia’s most-downloaded apps – Wells flagged that more platforms will be added to the government’s list.

“The eSafety Commissioner and I are looking at are migratory patterns … If we find that because they’ve been logged out of Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok [or] what have you, they end up on Lemon8, then we will look at whether the harm has transferred there and whether we need to add them to the list,” she said.

“We’re going to have more to say about Lemon8 this week, so stay tuned.

“Should any particular platform like Lemon8 … become the new source, I will not hesitate to act.”

In her speech on Wednesday, Wells will concede “there will still be kids with accounts on 10 December, and probably for some time after that”.

“But our expectation is clear: any company that allows this is breaking the law. Kids are clever and inherently seek to circumvent systems,” she will say. “We know it won’t be perfect from day one, but we won’t give up – and we won’t let the platforms off the hook.”

The Coalition supports the social media ban but found issues with its timing and implementation, while the Greens are against it, arguing it breaches children’s right to connect and find communities online.

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