* 80% of Australians aged 8-12 used social media in 2024,
eSafety
report finds
* Australia approved a ban on under-16 usage in November
* Platforms rely only on self-declaration of age at sign up,
report says
Feb 20 (Reuters) – Children in Australia are able to
easily bypass the minimum age limit imposed by social media
platforms, a report by the country’s online safety regulator
showed on Thursday, ahead of a landmark ban by the government on
access for those under 16.
ESafety’s report combined results from a national survey on
social media usage by eight to 15-year olds, along with
responses from eight services including Alphabet’s
YouTube, Meta’s Facebook and Amazon’s Twitch.
In November, Australia approved a social media ban for
children under 16, setting a benchmark for jurisdictions around
the world. The ban is set to take effect at the end of 2025.
Social media companies largely do not allow those under 13
to access their platforms.
The watchdog’s report found 80% of Australian children aged
eight to 12 used social media in 2024, with YouTube, ByteDance’s
TikTok, Meta’s Instagram and Snap’s Snapchat being the
most popular services.
All services except Reddit required date of birth
at its sign-up stage, however they all relied only on
self-declaration with no other age assurance tools, the report
said.
“There is still significant work to be done by any social
media platforms relying on truthful self-declaration to
determine age with enforcement of the government’s minimum age
legislation on the horizon,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman
Grant said.
YouTube, which is set to be exempted from the upcoming ban,
is the only service that allows under-13 usage when attached to
a family account with parental supervision. Still, none of the
eight to 12-year olds who had accounts reported shutdowns due to
being underage.
Ninety five percent of teens under 16 used at least one of
the eight services surveyed, the report said.
While TikTok, Twitch, Snapchat and YouTube used tools to
proactively detect users under 13, others did not, despite
having the technology available, the report said.
“Since the start of 2023, our… proactive age detection
tools, have resulted in the removal of more than one million
Australian users suspected of being under the age of 13,” a
TikTok spokesperson said.
A spokesperson for Meta, owner of Facebook and
Instagram, said the company supported age-appropriate
experiences for children online, but it should be the
responsibility of app stores to enforce age restrictions.
Reddit declined to comment, while Twitch, Snapchat and
YouTube did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
A vast majority of services had undertaken research to
improve their age assurance setups, while some had easy pathways
for users to report someone being under 13, the report added.
(Reporting by Aaditya Govind Rao in Bengaluru and Byron Kaye in
Sydney; Additional reporting by Sneha Kumar in Bengaluru;
Editing by Shailesh Kuber and Sonali Paul)
