Minister warns teens their VPN tricks will not beat new social media ban

Tech companies can detect fake ages and VPN tricks, the government has warned defiant teenagers, as a High Court bid seeks to overturn Australia’s groundbreaking social media ban.

Teenagers boasting about ways they’ll flout the incoming social media laws have been told they won’t work, as the government stares down a fresh legal bid to have the world-leading ban overturned.

The Digital Freedom Project and two young Australians on Wednesday filed a constitutional challenge in the High Court on the grounds it “robs” more than 2.5 million young Australians of their “implied right of political communication” and is therefore unlawful.

President John Ruddick, a Libertarian Party MLC in NSW said “this ban is disproportionate and will trespass either directly or indirectly upon the rights of every Australian”.

With the group seeking to delay the start of the ban, Communications Minister Anika Wells said the government would not be backing down.

“The Albanese Labor government remains steadfastly on the side of parents, and not of platforms,” she said.

“We will not be intimidated by threats. We will not be intimidated by legal challenges.”

Her defiance came just hours after she made clear to a room full of school-students that efforts to get around the social media ban would be futile because the tech companies are “super clever” and able to catch and prevent attempts to circumvent the law.

From December 10, social media companies will need to take “reasonable steps” to keep under 16s off their platforms or face fines of up to $50m. The law also requires they take steps to monitor and prevent circumvention, and be alive to new and emerging methods that will no doubt crop up.

Communications Minister Anika Wells on Wednesday. Picture: Martin Ollman/NCA NewsWire

In the lead-up to the laws coming into effect, young social media users are encouraging their peers to look for ways to flout the laws – including by using VPNs, using their parents’ or older sibling’s email addresses or social media accounts, adding “account owned by parent” in their bio, using fake IDs, using AI or filters, or even purchasing accounts from someone older.

Ms Wells said those wouldn’t work.

“All of the ideas around using a VPN or getting your older brother to use his face ID to sign your name, or put on the bio: ‘this account is looked after by dad’, these companies are onto it,” she said.

“And these aren’t the only input. Just because you change your birthday tonight and you go home to make sure that your account’s over 16, doesn’t mean that that account on Facebook for example doesn’t know that for the past few months, you’ve been talking to your friends online about the under 12 netball carnival.

“They’ve got all these other pieces of information that you’ve given away by talking and interacting online, that they’ve put together alongside a VPN that suddenly says you’ve moved to Oslo overnight. They can also see that your photos are on the Sunshine Coast.

The eSafey commission says platforms are “not required to eliminate all uncertainty” but need to “seek to minimise harm and work continuously to improve their age assurance method”.

“Our regulatory guidance for platforms makes it clear that we expect platforms to actively monitor and respond to changes in circumvention methods,” the online watchdog said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the roomful of Canberra school students the ban was about giving them time to “ride your bike, or be on the netball court, or in the swimming pool, or talking to your friends”.

“We’re very confident that this will work,” he said.