One of the world's biggest countries is pulling the plug on its youngsters consuming social media, with a countrywide ban forcing under-16s off their screens and to step outside in the real world. With continued concerns about how much time we're spending on our phones, and what it could be doing to those who are still developing, officials are finally stepping in to try and limit the screen time of our youngsters.
While there are already plenty of apps and ways to limit internet time at home, the fact that officials suggest no more than two hours of screen time outside of homework is seemingly being ignored.
With an even bigger boom in social media and the introduction of the likes of TikTok, Magnet ABA claims teens are now wasting up to nine hours a day gawping at devices.
That could all be about to change as things go dark Down Under, and Australia introduces a social media ban for under-16s.
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The world's first ban covers (deep breath), Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kick, Twitch, and TikTok. They are expected to remove accounts belonging to users under the age of 16, while any that don't comply can face fines of up to $49.5 million AUD ($32.86 million USD).
As reported by the Guardian, of the above, aside from Elon Musk's X, confirmed they'd fall in line by December 9. Still, eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant said there had been a recent conversation about X's compliance, but it hadn't yet been communicated to its users.
Despite eSafety assessing Bluesky as 'low risk' due to a small base of 50,000 users in Australia, the X rival also said it would comply.
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Australian chief executive and co-founder of the age assurance service k-ID, Kieran Donovan, says the service has been busy with hundreds of thousands of age checks, although there are reports of teething problems. One concerned parent told the Guardian that their 15-year-old daughter was 'very distressed' because “all her 14 to 15-year-old friends have been age verified as 18 by Snapchat”.
She had been identified as under-16, fearing "her friends will keep using Snapchat to talk and organise social events and she will be left out."
We recently covered how one influencer family was due to relocate simply so it could keep using social media, with others apparently undertaking extreme measures to circumvent the laws.
Like when those in the United Kingdom flocked to VPNs to get around age verification to access the likes of Pornhub, many Australians are said to be trying similar tricks. Still, the Australian government claims that if platforms have complied fully with eSafety's guidelines, even a VPN won't get around the block.
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It's a conundrum, considering neither the parents nor the children of those flouting the rules can be punished for trying to break the rules. Two 15-year-olds, Noah Jones and Macy Neyland, have also launched their own last-minute bid to overturn the ruling before December 10.
Speaking to The New Scientist, they explained how some under-16s are hiding old devices that belonged to their parents and switching their accounts over. Jones continued: "We know about algorithms, so kids are following older-people groups like gardening or over-50s walking groups, and we comment in professional language so we don’t get picked up.”
Jones and Neyland's Digital Freedom Project is backed by New South Wales politician John Ruddick, who added: "I've got an 11-year-old and a 13-year-old kid and they’ve been telling me for months that everyone in the playground’s talking about it. They’re all on social media. They all benefit from social media."
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There's also been a spike in those turning to alternative social media services like Yope, Coverstar, and Lemon8 that aren't yet on the banned list, while parents are said to be using their own faces to help kids stay online.