brisbane, australia
—
When Australia’s social media ban came into effect on Wednesday, 14-year-old cheerleader Lucy Brooks temporarily lost several friends on Snapchat.
But within 24 hours they were back. Many created new accounts, and some borrowed the faces of parents or older friends who were willing to help them circumvent age-detection technology.
When Australia imposed a world-class social media ban on under-16s, critics predicted other platforms would quickly replace the 10 banned sites, including teen favorites Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram.
But perhaps they didn’t expect it would be so easy for teenagers to reappear on the same platforms, using the same kinds of tricks that British teenagers used when the UK government introduced online safety laws in July.
“In many cases, it was with the knowledge of their parents, but people are also using AI-generated photos and videos of people, like having an AI create a 40-year-old person…to get over that,” said Lucy, who lost access to Instagram but still uses Snapchat and TikTok.
Lucy Brooks, 14 year old cheerleader
It remains to be seen whether these accounts will eventually disappear, as age verification companies say their technology allows them to roughly assess who is using the account, even if the owner passes the age check.
But for now, young people under the age of 16 who try to access banned sites, especially those whose parents do not object to them returning to the site, can continue to do so.
To mark the introduction of the ban on Wednesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hosted a quintessential Australian barbecue on the lawn of his Sydney mansion.
His guests included parents of children who died by suicide after enduring cyberbullying, and activists campaigning for a return to childhood unencumbered by the threat of online abuse and sexual exploitation.
To celebrate the world-leading bill, Sydney Harbor Bridge has been lit up in patriotic green and gold colors and the campaign slogan ‘Let Them Be Kids’.
In a park under the bridge, a group of four 15-year-old boys on bicycles stopped and spoke to CNN about the ban. No one lost their account.
“I think it’s because I put in my date of birth as 2000 when I first registered,” one of the boys said, and his friends nodded. “It’s easier that way.”
“I don’t mind losing TikTok, but I don’t want to lose Snapchat either,” said another boy, explaining that the platform is useful for sending messages to friends without exchanging phone numbers.
When asked if WhatsApp or Apple iMessage would suffice, the boy replied, “Getting a real phone number is a hassle.” Another boy said he gets all his news from Instagram and has little exposure to traditional media.
“Sometimes you’ll see Channel Nine in your feed,” he said of the Australian free-to-air station. The conversation ended with the boys gently teasing one of their friends and suggesting that they sometimes read paper newspapers. “That’s not true, bro,” the boys laughed.
Leo Paglisi, 18, founder of the online news channel 6 News, opposes the ban and is not convinced it will achieve its goals.
“I know I can’t stop young people from using social media, because my brother is under 16 and he’s still using social media,” Puglisi told CNN on Thursday. “He didn’t even try to get around it…so I’m pretty sure it’s not working.”
Paglisi started his news channel when he was 11 years old and now manages a small team of nine school-age journalists, juggling homework and breaking news. He says 6 News wouldn’t exist if the ban had been in place when he started.
Leo Puglissi, Founder, 6 News
“What you have to remember in this whole discussion is that we’re talking about 15-year-olds who are banned from social media, not 5-year-olds. I think 15-year-olds who can work part-time should be allowed to log into YouTube.”
Entrepreneur Lucas Lane isn’t worried about losing his account because he’s 16 years old, but he’s very concerned about the younger kids who look to him for leadership.
He started his own business, Glossy Boys, at age 13 after having trouble finding black nail polish at his local pharmacy. Today, the company primarily sells its “skate-proof” nail polish to a growing youth market through Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
Lucas Lane, 16 year old entrepreneur
Lucas Lane, 16 year old entrepreneur
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“This social media ban is going to have a big impact on my business and not just my business, but the community and people here in Australia. I want people to be unique. I want people to be themselves and I’m worried that the government and social media companies aren’t allowing that.”
He says education, restrictions and protection are much better than prohibitions.
Two legal challenges to the ban have been launched in Australia’s High Court, including one on Friday from the popular online forum Reddit, which claims the ban raises “significant privacy and political expression issues for everyone on the internet”. Reddit stressed that it is complying with the law for now.
“I’m scared and nervous.”
When asked on TikTok what they would do after being banned, some users jokingly suggested juvenile delinquency. Some said they were switching to lesser-known apps, such as photo-sharing site Yope and Coverstar, which promotes a safer version of TikTok with “no DMs, no creeps.”
Lemon8, owned by ByteDance, was initially seen as an alternative to TikTok, but the company says it is now restricted to people 16 and older.
Shah, a 15-year-old aspiring singer, set up an account on Lemon8 and encouraged others to follow her. She was worried that all 4,000 of her TikTok followers would disappear overnight. That didn’t happen.
“None of my accounts on any platform have been closed, even those that list my real age,” said Shah, who was relieved to learn that her TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat accounts were still working.
“I don’t really know anyone my age who has had closure,” she said. “I’m pretty surprised, to be honest, because they made such a big deal about it. I think when you make such a big deal about something, you need to get it done.”
But for cheerleader Lucy and her friends, it is unclear how long they will remain active on social media, causing anxiety. Her friends said they couldn’t download the account because they didn’t have enough storage. They don’t want to delete their photos and messages and lose their memories, but they worry that their private photos and messages will be frozen in a giant digital vault somewhere, sometimes for years.
“For a lot of people, it’s scary and nerve-wracking because they don’t know what to do,” Lucy said. Her friends said they had exchanged phone numbers before the ban in case they lost contact, but had not yet had to use them.
Lucy wants to keep Instagram because as a cheerleader, her images are sometimes posted on cheerleading accounts and she wants to know where and how they are used. She also follows other cheerleading groups to check out their routines and try to improve.
Lucy, like many other children, believes that problematic content on social media needs to be addressed, but she doesn’t think a ban is the best response.
“I actually hope it works because I don’t think kids should use social media that much,” Lucy said. “But I don’t think that will work,” she quickly added.
She said a more effective response would be to impose a time limit: “I think anything between one and two hours is fair.”
CNN’s Angus Watson and Antoinette Radford contributed reporting.
