Australia's Teen Social Media Ban Isn't Working. Half Their Teens Still Have Access, Survey Finds (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0182917478
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/04/25/236216/australias-teen-social-media-ban-isnt-working-half-their-teens-still-have-access-survey-finds
- Source link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/most-australian-teens-admit-social-111400429.html
> 14-year-old in New South Wales, [2]told The Washington Post in December 2025, just before the implementation of the ban, she planned to use her mother's face ID to log in to Snapchat and . In a Reddit thread on ways to bypass the ban, one user [3]suggested using a printed mesh face mask from Temu to outsmart apps' facial recognition tools. Others still have tried VPNs that obscure their locations.
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> A new report suggests these efforts are working. In a [4]survey of 1,050 Australians ages 12 to 15 conducted last month, the UK-based suicide prevention organization the Molly Rose Foundation found more than 60% of teens who had social media accounts before the ban still had access to at least one of those platforms. Social media sites including TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, have retained more than half of their users under 16. About two-thirds of young users say these platforms have taken "no action" to remove or reactive accounts that existed before the restrictions.
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> The survey comes at the heels of the Australian internet regulator [5]calling for an investigation into the five largest social media platforms over potential breaches of the ban.
The article points out that "Greece, France, Indonesia, Austria, Spain, and the UK have or are considering similar action, and eight U.S. states are weighing legislation that would put guardrails or ban social media use for minors.
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/most-australian-teens-admit-social-111400429.html
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/12/09/australia-social-media-ban/
[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAustralian/comments/1ovtdhi/how_can_i_bypass_the_social_media_ban/
[4] https://mollyrosefoundation.org/more-than-60-of-australian-children-still-using-social-media-despite-ban-for-under-16s-research-shows/
[5] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/australia-investigates-tech-giants-over-social-media-ban-compliance-2026-03-30/
The kids are alright (Score:3)
Imagine if we punished social media companies for the harm they are responsible for, rather than punishing kids for wanting to communicate with their friends and the world.
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Imaging if by popular vote we could disable your anonymous coward button for 2 weeks if enough people find your post objectionable. I guess you'd have to cause trouble somewhere else.
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Sure, don't punish young Tina for wanting to hook up with "Joe" on Facebook (because she's heard it's fun or whatever from her friends or seen girls on Tiktok hooking up with older guys). Is there a reason Tina can't bike over to her friend's house?
The 'Company' has enough money to settle anything... but young Tina's 12-year-old self won't be the same after "Joe" is done.
Maybe, the parents could do something, completely unknown these days, I think it's called PARENTING.
I doubt the kids need a $1,000 smartp
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If the parents are nonexistent (or the kid is raised by a babysitter or maid), the kid doesn't need a phone, does it (it being a kid of unspecified gender)?
Fictional child? Do you have tracking ankle monitors on your kids? Do you know what your kids do when they go out to play?
I'm stating facts... sure, not "every single kid" does that, but enough do that it's not a fantasy.
Considering I don't have Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, how would it be?
And, it's not exactly "a projected scenario"... the world
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Ah, you're the PARENTS guy. I've seen your posts around. It's always somebody else's fault, not the US companies who move fast and break things. It's an extreme position to have, but in America at least you're entitled to it.
If you ever travel abroad, you might be shocked to find that people in other countries will vehemently disagree with you, and they don't necessarily care for the "its just free speech" defense.
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> they'd be fine with a limited flip phone
Flip phones as you remember them don't exist anymore, and if you do buy a vintage relic it won't connect to modern cell networks (at least, not here in the USA).
You're actually better off getting a kid a modern smartphone with the parental controls enabled rather than hoping outdated tech is going to keep them away from inappropriate things. For example, an old school RAZR (ignoring those network incompatibilities I'd previously mentioned) has absolutely no capabilities to detect and filter nudity from tex
Oh no (Score:2)
Who could have ever predicted this outcome?
Shift the burden of implementation to the (Score:2)
social media companies. They'll either pull out of the country/state or comply. Make it so there's severe tort exposure if they do nothing by private right of action.
Age verification is being implemented in the wrong place. Like others have said, the endgame my be no internet access unless we know who you are.
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They'll either buy the politicians or bribe the judges to ensure that any tort exposure is minimized if they do nothing.
FTFY
What alternatives are they promoting? (Score:3)
Okay, ban social media, but have they also instituted any programs to help kids socialize IRL? Because the world has largely forgotten how to do that. After school programs, sports clubs -- are they pushing anything to to replace or *displace* social media to fill the void left by the social media ban?
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IMHO Social media this one of the reasons the world as gone to pot.
Bring back physical social gatherings where you get to see the faces of the persons you are socializing with. This way they can't hide behind their device. This tends to keep people honest.
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I remember I used to bike or walk over to my friend's houses (and knew how to use the phone on the wall between kitchen and livingroom to call)... we didn't do any talking online (once being online became cheaper)... cellphones were a ways off (and, those were holding a low-profile graphics card).
We'd go out biking and occasionally camp out in the backyard behind my house.
Now, kids are glued to the phones/tablets and games consoles all the time, and that's where they learn their social skills.
The daughter g
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Does that include slashdot?
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Band camp.
It hasn't failed. (Score:2)
It's just only 50% effective.
Only half? (Score:1)
That is a bit low, the youngens are really slacking off... or nobody really cares about socialmedia anymore anyway, it is nothing but a propaganda pipeline straight into your conscious and subconscious nowadays.
It has never been this cheap and easy to flood an entire society with your erosive filth.
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I wonder if a contributing factor to it being that low is that social media has contributed to the lack of attention, focus and creativity in a reasonable chunk of said youngens.
Would be interesting to discover that social media itself turned out to be a contributing factor in the effectiveness of the social media ban.
"isn't working" is absolutist thinking. (Score:2)
If a virus only infects 50% of people, that doesn't mean "nobody is getting infected". The inability for people to see nuance is annoying. 50% certainly is not 0% and it is not 100%. The idea that "perfect is the enemy of good" still applies to modern life, even if you don't understand it.
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My guess is that the people putting this out know this perfectly well. What they are trying to do is put out propaganda to sway public sentiment that the system is not working and should therefore be scrapped. I suspect this content is being funded indirectly by the social media companies.
My fear is that the people putting this out are going to be somewhat successful in their endevours.
Enforcement? (Score:2)
So, even if you make it law... who enforces this ban? The ISP (at the house), the cell provider (who the kid uses for data to avoid the modem's parental controls), the parents (who barely spend time with the kid because they work so late)?
If it's Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram... that are responsible, unless they face-scan every pic posted and verify it against the ID that was used to open the account, I can hand my phone to my sis (or brother, or whoever is older), and pass age verification tests.
Of course not (Score:2)
Its the same issue as inmates having phones and social media accounts. If you have access to money and credentials anything is easy to obtain.
So it's working great for half of them! (Score:1)
I'm a glass half full kind of guy: Australia is off to a great start!
It could also help break the chain of "everyone is on social media, so I have to be there too" FOMO that drives a lot of addiction.
I kept my now-young-adult kids completely off social media until they were 18. They have thanked me many times for it after seeing what it did to their peers.
I really think this is just other countries (Score:2)
Pushing out American social media companies because they've seen how powerful they are for propaganda and you can't really have a potentially hostile foreign Nation with a enormous propaganda apparatus operating inside your country.
So you start with children and you work your way up until you've pushed them out of the market.
Is your legislature feasible? (Score:1)
Some lawmakers, swaggering all over the place, drunk on their sycophant's praise and self importance, will always pass laws that are not really feasible nor useful but panders to their own fantasies. Their ilks, whether a banana republic dictator, or an Australian mp, can be relied on to make many piece of legislature that are newsworthy contributions in their arrogance and uselessness, and not on their feasibility. After all they don't have to be the schmuck who has to implement them.
Minors looking at pr0n was and is illegal (Score:1)
That didn't stop anyone either.
Tit pix over 56k dialup was something special when you were 13 years old. Or slighly cute but also pathetic in retrospect. Oy I'm getting old...
Duh (Score:1)
Your "kids" know more about tech then your politicians. Film at 11.
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My dog knows more than most politicians.