List Details Violations Across Several Locations in Australia

Eight months after Australia implemented a ban on under-16s accessing social media services like TikTok, new data shows younger users are returning in droves. Some 26 per cent of children aged 13 to 15 were on TikTok as of last month, just one percentage point below the rate before the rules came into effect, according to parental control software maker Qustodio. The rate for children aged 10 to 12 is now higher than before the ban.

Australia has been at the forefront of legislating to prevent underage users from accessing services like Instagram and Facebook from Meta Platforms and TikTok, owned by China's ByteDance. Many argue the services harm young users' mental health, and other countries are following Australia's example, including New Zealand, which announced plans this week. "What we've seen is an immediate drop to a degree, but slowly but surely the numbers have started to increase again to almost equivalent levels" for some services, said Yasmin London, a global online safety expert at Qustodio.

Usage rates for Instagram and Snap's Snapchat are lower than TikTok but have also begun to creep up after falling initially when the ban took effect in December, the data show. London said children could be obfuscating their ages, using virtual private networks that disguise their locations, or simply not encountering effective age checks on platforms. "In the end, kids want access because they want to be connected just like the rest of us," she said.

The new data underscores concerns about the effectiveness of Australia's age controls and Big Tech's compliance. Regulators, tech firms and parents worldwide are studying Australia's experience as more than two dozen governments have implemented or are seeking to implement similar measures. Australia is being "closely watched" and has come to symbolise the issue of social media restrictions, said Minda Smiley, a senior analyst at Emarketer focused on social media.

"Even as other countries follow suit, I think a lot of people are paying particular attention to Australia and hoping it can provide some sort of blueprint. The data, which Qustodio says may understate the issue as it is collected only from devices with its parental oversight software installed, also emerges as social media giants face numerous lawsuits in the US alleging they harm young users by making platforms hard to resist. Barcelona-based Qustodio's research was based on anonymised information from 19,000 Australian families, measuring the percentage of children who had unblocked access to the apps and used them at least once per month for more than five consecutive minutes.

One service seeing increased usage is Meta's WhatsApp, which is not subject to the government's restrictions. Some 27 per cent of children aged 13 to 15 were on the messaging platform before the ban; that number now stands at 36 per cent. TikTok, Snap and Meta didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Australia's government in June said social media companies weren't doing enough to comply with the age restriction, which mandates firms take reasonable steps to keep under-16s off or face fines. It pledged to double the maximum penalty for violations to A$99 million (€60.5 million) and give the country's online safety watchdog extra enforcement powers. No platform has been fined for breaching the ban so far. Australia's online safety regulator, known as eSafety, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment." Governments looking for clues on whether Australia's rules are working will likely take the long view, Smiley said.