The government of Australia is banning children under 16 years old from having social media accounts, in a world-first policy that's set to take place from Dec 10th onwards. Ten social media companies including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Threads, X, Reddit, YouTube, Kick, and Twitch will be responsible for taking “reasonable steps” to ensure that kids under 16 in the country cannot set up accounts on their platforms and that existing accounts are deactivated.
The government said it will continue adding to the list of affected platforms, considering three main criteria when doing so:
- Is the platform's sole or “significant purpose” to enable online social interaction between two or more users?
- Does it allow users to interact with some or all other users?
- Does it allow users to post content?
YouTube Kids, Google Classroom and WhatsApp are not included on the list, as they were not deemed to have met those criteria, and children will still be able to view most content on YouTube and other platforms that do not require an account to watch.
Children and parents will not be punished for infringing on the ban. Only the social media companies are charged with enforcing it, facing fines up to $49.5M for serious or repeated breaches.
So what “reasonable steps” must these social media companies take to ban kids from their platforms?
The government has proposed several possibilities including requiring government IDs, face, or voice recognition, as well as using online behavior or interactions to estimate a person's age. (Sucks for any adults that love comic books and anime, I guess.) The government is encouraging platforms to use various methods of age verification, without specifying or requiring a particular one. However it's said that platforms cannot simply rely on users declaring their own age.
How are social media companies responding?
- Meta said it will begin closing teen accounts on Dec 4th, with users who are mistakenly kicked off able to use their government ID or provide a selfie to verify their age.
- Sapchat said users can use bank accounts or photo IDs to verify their age or take a selfie.
Australia enacted this ban after a study earlier this year determined that 96% of children aged 10-15 used social media and that 7 out of 10 had ben exposed to harmful content and behavior including misogynistic material, fight videos, eating disorders, suicide, cyberbullying, and grooming from adults.
I mean, I get it… but it's not going to work.
Kids are too smart. They're going to figure out a way around it and/or simply gravitate towards other platforms that are not yet on the list. The Australian government will be playing an ongoing game of whack-a-mole to add apps and platforms to their list.
Also, the current list of impacted apps seems incredibly arbitrary. WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal aren't on the list even though they offer group chat features and some offer public status updates?
The whole thing seems like a stepping stone to require all users in the country, adults included, to provide government issued IDs to participate in online services.
The world is watching closely. Malaysia already announced on Sunday that it plans to follow in Australia's footsteps and ban children under 16 from social media starting next year, and I can only imagine that other countries will soon follow.