Australia under-16s social media ban: What every parent should know

Communications Minister Anika Wells has important advice on how parents should approach the under-16s social media ban, including what to do if a child lies about their age to get online.

EXCLUSIVE: The day Australia’s social media ban takes effect children under the age of 16 will awake to find their accounts don’t exist and it will remain the job of platforms to then keep kids away.

That’s the clear message Communications Minister Anika Wells wants parents to hear as the December 10 ban looms, revealing individual families can decide how they want to handle children finding “workarounds”.

She said parents who discover their child has lied about their age to get online may choose to simply have a conversation about it, or they could report the account to the platform.

This is the case of any underage account a parent might learn of, such as friend of their child, though it will always remain the responsibility of tech giants like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and now YouTube to be proactively taking “reasonable” steps to ensure children under 16 are not on their platforms.

“We’re backing parents over the platforms,” she said.

“This is on the platforms to do this.

“It’s not for you to have a fight with your 13-year-old.”

Communication Minister Anika Wells says parents who discover their child has lied about their age to get online may choose to simply have a conversation about it, or they could report the account to the platform. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

There will also be the option to report issues to the eSafety Commissioner, which may then follow up on broader enforcement concerns with the social media companies directly.

For her part Ms Wells plans to be “all over the country running around trying to beat the drum so that parents can point to the TV saying ‘it’s the law, yeah you’re not allowed’.”

While the social media giants await the final report on an age assurance trial that has been testing third party options for verifying a users’ age, many are also working on internal solutions to enforcing the new laws.

No platform has confirmed the steps they will take, though all are required to provide users an option that does not require handing over identification documents.

The government has maintained it is confident companies have the means to discover and remove children on their platform, whether its account holders who are detected attending a school each day or based on the types of content they interact on.

Ms Wells said how the government responded would depend on what children came up with to skirt the rules.

“We don’t know, kids are amazing (at finding workarounds),” she said.

“But that’s why in the law, the four ‘reasonable step’ provisions (for platforms) are deactivate, stop reactivations or new activations, stop workarounds and correct errors.”

Ms Wells says the eSafety Commission will be the ‘one source of truth’ on information around the ban. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Ms Wells said the eSafety Commission will be the “one source of truth” on information around the ban, and the government will do “everything we can” to make things as clear as possible for parents.

That will include an advertising campaign, due to be launched within months, that will raise awareness of the ban, a challenge Ms Well said was the biggest issue for the government between now and December.

“I think despite the fact that these laws have passed at the end of last year, our biggest task at the moment is making sure that parents know what is coming.”

In addition to the information on the eSafety Commission website, the government is looking at providing MPs with packs to send to their local schools.

Ms Wells is relaxed about engaging with parents who perhaps have not been closely following the public debate around social media that lead to the law change.

“I think they’ll understand the rationale, which is that, unfortunately, evidently, campaigns like (Newscorp’s) Let Them Be Kids have demonstrated that there is too much online harm being experienced by Australian kids,” she said.

“And if you don’t know that, if your family hasn’t experienced that, how fortunate you feel, because you’ve probably heard of it happening to a kid at school in your town, and this is too many instances for us to not have a crack at doing this.”

Australia’s social media ban takes effect on December 10.

Ms Wells, who has three children aged between four and eight, said personally her instinct was to “avoid” reading the harrowing cases involving social media and kids coming to harm.

“I usually avoid reading them because you don’t want to think that will happen to your child or to a child that you love, she said.

“But the number of instances that you see, force you to deal with the fact you can’t escape it.”

Ms Wells said while disordered eating, depression and bullying predate social media, there was clear evidence platforms’ algorithms exacerbated harms.

“Those issues existed when I was going through school, but the access to information that would worsen that condition wasn’t there,” she said.

“I mean you couldn’t go home and watch someone in a basement teach you how to fire an Uzi when we were at school, and at the moment, kids can do that.

“And if you’re suffering from eating disorders, obviously that still occurred, but the access to a community of people who might amplify those conditions wasn’t what it is on social media.”

Ms Wells said there was great “utility” in social media, but the government would no longer allow pervasive “predatory” algorithms to flourish.

“There’s no place for them, and that’s what we’re cracking down on.”

Anika Wells with her husband Finn and their three children Celeste (8) and twins Ossian and Dashiel (4). Picture: Supplied

Brisbane mother Melody Lawler said she supported the social media ban, calling it the “first step in the right direction” for protecting children online.

The family have decided to limit screentime and device usage and have not allowed their two daughters, aged 11 and 10, to have social media accounts.

“Things like bullying at school, 100 per cent that has been happening forever, but all of a sudden now bullying doesn’t stopwhen you get home, it is in your lounge room, in your bedroom,” she said.

Her husband Michael said he was not surprised children were rushing to sign up to social media accounts before the ban was implemented.

“There is very much a strong pull for that being cool, or that being the expected norm to be on social media,” he said.

“I totally disagree with the notion of (social media use), in terms of safety for children and their capacity to make choicesthat are appropriate at that age.

“There is so much opportunity for danger for them; they could get themselves into trouble, they could get themselves intoa position they are very uncomfortable with and don’t know how to get out of.”

Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800

Butterfly Foundation: 1800 33 4673