Australia has enacted a world-first ban on social media for users aged under 16, causing millions of children and teenagers to lose access to their accounts.
Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kick, Twitch and TikTok are expected to have taken steps from Wednesday to remove accounts held by users under 16 years of age in Australia, and prevent those teens from registering new accounts.
Platforms that do not comply risk fines of up to $49.5m.
There have been some teething problems with the ban’s implementation. Guardian Australia has received several reports of those under 16 passing the facial age assurance tests, but the government has flagged it is not expecting the ban will be perfect from day one.
All listed platforms apart from X had confirmed by Tuesday they would comply with the ban. The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said it had recently had a conversation with X about how it would comply, but the company had not communicated its policy to users.
Bluesky, an X alternative, announced on Tuesday it would also ban under-16s, despite eSafety assessing the platform as “low risk” due to its small user base of 50,000 in Australia.
Parents of children affected by the ban shared a spectrum of views on the policy. One parent told the Guardian 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”. Since she had been identified as under 16, they feared “her friends will keep using Snapchat to talk and organise social events and she will be left out”.
Others said the ban “can’t come quickly enough”. One parent said their daughter was “completely addicted” to social media and the ban “provides us with a support framework to keep her off these platforms”.
“The fact that teenagers occasionally find a way to have a drink doesn’t diminish the value of having a clear, national standard.”
Polling has consistently shown that two-thirds of voters support raising the minimum age for social media to 16. The opposition, including leader Sussan Ley, have recently voiced alarm about the ban, despite waving the legislation through parliament and the former Liberal leader Peter Dutton championing it.
The ban has garnered worldwide attention, with several nations indicating they will adopt a ban of their own, including Malaysia, Denmark and Norway. The European Union passed a resolution to adopt similar restrictions, while a spokesperson for the British government told Reuters it was “closely monitoring Australia’s approach to age restrictions”.
Bingo.
It’s never about “the children.” It’s a way to normalize handing over biometrics and anonymity to an assumed authority to use the internet.
It’s always about control, control, control. It’s about tying real identities to online activity, then it’s about wholesale harvesting your secrets you didn’t even know you were keeping.
Then it’s yet another instrument to make sure you shut up and don’t step out of line or else.
First they take us away from our kids by necessitating that entire households need full time careers to survive.
Then as a substitute for education and actual parenting we’re so eager to offer up our childrens’ futures in the name of “protecting” them from the inevitable consequences of parentless households.
people show ID to get into a bar, doesn’t feel that far away from this. its not a substitute for parenting , though it is another layer
The bar’s not storing your information. If this was just age verification on entry, that would be similar.
yeah understood. the intention is good but concerns exist re implementation. what are some other approaches that could he used?
Beforehand the user gets a personal key from the government, then when a site asks for proof of age, the user signs a token which the site sends to the government server with a query “Is this user over 16?”. Then the government server identifies the user with the token, and responds to the site “Yes” or “No”.
The site cannot see any of your personal information, just that you are over 16.
I’m surprised the government isn’t doing the verification themselves as it has a huge information/tracking incentive to do so.
Bars are required by law to store the identification documents of patrons in Australia.
Like the other reply said, when you go to a bar you’re just showing your birthdate to some guy at the front for a few seconds.
Now, if the bar demanded to make a scan of my ID and uploaded it to some server, and reported my entry to said bar to the government or some privatized authority, then handed that data to some algorithm to cross reference everywhere else I’ve been to build a profile on my behavior, then established various metrics based on who I was seen hanging around…then probably sold all of that to a bunch of marketing firms…
And on and on. Now imagine it’s been doing this since you were like 16.
If this sounds far fetched and overblown, I invite you to look at how US law enforcement uses dragnet surveillance like “stingray towers” to hand information to ICE, then make a decision as to whether “The Good Guys” or anybody else should be allowed to follow your footsteps across the Web.
Edit: quick side tangent:
The hilarious part is how the parties pushing for this “fOr ThE ChiLdReN” surveillance capitalism will also be the first to cry “Leftist Nanny State tho! Muh personal responsibility!” When people want something like universal healthcare.
agree, so the idea is ok but the way they are going about it sucks. what are some fixes?
That is in fact a requirement for bars in Australia.
It’s been that way for a while with clubs and some designated bars, but when did this happen with all bars?