Violations of social media ban must be met with strong action

“Today, we change a generation. Today, we change a culture. Today, we change lives for the better.”

These were the lofty words of Communications Minister Anika Wells – remember her? – delivered at Kirribilli House in Sydney on December 10 last year, the day the federal government introduced its social media ban for children aged under 16.

The ban was billed as a world first and has since sparked a wave of action by other nations. In the United States, a key Republican senator and potential Democratic presidential candidate both backed the policy.

France’s National Assembly this week backed legislation to ban under-15s from social media, amid growing concerns about online bullying and mental health risks.

In Britain, the House of Lords voted to support a ban for under-16s via an amendment to the government’s schools bill.

Denmark, Greece, Spain and Ireland are also considering following the Australian example.

Meanwhile, TikTok has agreed to settle a lawsuit on social media addiction, the same day the trial was due to start against Meta and YouTube in a California court. TikTok is one of four companies – including Meta, Snap and YouTube – facing allegations their platforms are fuelling a youth mental health crisis. Snap settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.

So, given this wave of global reaction, much attributed to our Australian laws, what are the results of the ban here – and how effective has it been?

Well, according to a Herald story published by Bronte Gossling on Wednesday, for young Snapchat users not very effective at all. They can verify their accounts by scanning the faces of people who are much older and even of a different gender.

Despite this alarming failure of one of the apps most popular with young users, on January 16 eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said all 10 age-restricted platforms were in compliance with the legislation and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said more than 4.7 million accounts had been removed across all age-restricted platforms.

Meta has provided its own numbers: 544,052 accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Threads believed to belong to under-16s were shut down between December 4 and December 11.

That all sounds positive. But it’s common among the estimated 2.3 million eight- to 15-year-old Australian social media users to have logins across social media sites, multiple accounts on any single platform, and it’s unclear how many just created fresh accounts.

To be fair, the government and the eSafety commissioner acknowledged that enforcement of the ban and the accuracy of facial recognition technology would be a work in progress and would take time. Fines of up to $49.5 million for corporations that fail to exclude youngsters are seen as a last resort.

But this latest revelation about Snapchat illustrates that what is needed is robust enforcement of the ban, ongoing monitoring of social media companies and their actions, and a commitment to share information with the public. What’s more, parents must back the laws and not turn a blind eye to what their children are doing.

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