Big Tech bows to Australia’s teen social media ban

Online platforms will ping Australian teenagers through over a million accounts in coming days offering a choice: download data, freeze profiles or lose the lot when a world-first ban on kids using social media starts on Dec.10, reported Reuters. TikTok, Snapchat and Meta's Facebook, Instagram and Threads are poised to deactivate accounts registered by users under 16, five people with knowledge of the plans said. Australia's remaining 20 million social media users — four-fifths of the population — can expect little interruption, the people said, as platforms promise low-fuss compliance with a law which puts Australia ahead in the protection of youths online.

The picture is a departure from the chaotic scenarios painted during a year of protest by platform operators fearing a loss of users as well as a A$49.5 million ($32 million) fine for noncompliance. Firms had argued mandatory age checks would subject users to endless log-ins, be invasive or inaccurate and be easy to circumvent.

In practice, social media firms will lean on software they already employ to guess age based on engagement through "likes", for instance, rather than the frequent input and verification of birth dates, the people said. With that software long-established, having originally been developed for marketing, firms will generally resort to so-called age assurance apps only when users complain of being incorrectly blocked, said the people, declining to be identified as the plans are not yet finalised.

Still, the approach is open to teething problems. Anyone can contest bans through age assurance apps which are being deployed at scale for the first time and which trials showed worked but sometimes with unacceptable error rates - typically along the lines of blocking 16-17 year-olds or approving 15 year-olds, with latter cases potentially exposing companies to fines, reported Reuters.

For those directed to age assurance apps, disruption will still be minimal, said Julie Dawson, chief policy officer at Yoti, which provides age assurance for Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

"There'll be a maximum of two to three weeks of people getting to grips with something that they do daily, and then it's old news," she said. Meta, Snapchat, TikTok and Google, owner of video-sharing platform YouTube, declined to comment. In October parliamentary hearings, all but Google said they planned to comply and would contact young users, without elaborating.

Governments have been grappling with how to protect children online since Meta documents leaked in 2021 showed awareness of social media's harm to teenagers. In 2024, bestseller "The Anxious Generation" and a campaign by News Corp's Australian arm helped spur political action.

The new law navigated opposition from free speech crusaders and child rights advocates, as well as social media firms and content creators. It gives platform operators until December to implement means of blocking minors without the need for parental discretion.

TikTok, which said it has 200,000 Australian users aged 13-15, told parliament it was designing a button for reporting suspected underage users. The only Australian-owned firm under the ban is livestream platform Kick, whose moderation came under scrutiny this year following a livestreamed death. A spokesperson said Kick "will be compliant" and "intends to introduce a range of measures". Platforms will likely direct users to third-party age assurance apps only if the user believes a platform's built-in software guessed the wrong age, the people with knowledge of the matter said.