Australia’s social media ban for teens, how it’s going

It’s been a month since Australia banned under-16s from social media platforms, and some teens are glad to be free of the distraction, while others have found ways to bypass the law.

The Online Safety Amendment Act requires major social media platforms like Meta’s Instagram, ByteDance’s TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube, Elon Musk’s X, and Reddit to implement age verification methods such as facial estimation through selfies, uploaded ID documents, or linked bank details.

Tech companies — not parents and teens — face repercussions for any breaches. This includes a fine of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($32 million) if they fail to take “reasonable steps” to comply.

Australia’s government argued it would protect teens from the addictive algorithm design that hooks people and mental health harms attributed to social media, such as reduced sleep and increased stress.

Opponents of the ban argued it would be ineffective.

Here are the top three takeaways on how the ban is going, a month in.

Amy, 14, kept a diary since the ban started and told the BBC in a recent report that she feels “free” without the pressure of maintaining a presence on Snapchat — one of the affected platforms.

“I often used to call my friends on Snapchat after school, but because I am no longer able to, I went for a run,” Amy wrote in her diary.

The BBC reported that downloads of some apps that were not affected, such as ByteDance-owned Lemon8, Yope, and Discord, surged in the days after the law was implemented.

Downloads of VPNs, which hide users’ locations to bypass country-specific restrictions, increased before the ban. Downloads have now fallen back to normal and social media platforms are expected to detect VPNs as part of the law.

However, the Australian government caught on. Lemon8 has since complied with age restriction requirements after self-assessing that it should be included in the ban, according to The West Australian. The Australian government also asked Yope to self-assess whether it should do so.

Meta said in January that it blocked over 500,000 under-16 accounts in Australia, but added that age verification needs to extend to the app store. It said that teens use over 40 apps a week, including many are not under the scope of the ban, arguing this means they can still be exposed to harmful content.

The tech giant previously warned that the ban would cut off teens from friends and community.

Reddit, another banned platform, has taken it further and launched a legal challenge against the Australian government, saying…