Only a few more sleeps to go...

No, not that, we’re only a couple of sleeps away from Australia enacting its new under-16 social media ban, which will see all the major social platforms tasked with boosting their efforts to keep young users out of their apps, at the risk of hefty fines if they fail to do so.

And with many other regions considering similar restrictions, in order to enhance protection for youngsters, the world will be watching to see how Australian teens respond, how Australian regulators enact the new ban, and whether enhanced age checking is, in fact, an effective means to limit teen access.

But how are Australian teens feeling about all this?

Well, being that I actually live in Australia, and have two teen children of my own, I’ve been able to ask them.

Over the past few months, I’ve asked a range of teenagers about the new ban, and how they’re feeling about the restrictions, in order to glean some insight into how they expect it to impact them.

And their responses have been interesting, and have raised some additional considerations that I hadn’t initially considered.

First off, most teens I spoke to use Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram as their main platforms of choice. That’s likely as you would expect, but as a baseline of which apps will be most impacted, these are the three that most commonly came up.

Of interest here, however, is that many teens actually use these apps without logging in. That limits what they can see, of course, but for some apps, like X, teens are accessing these without creating an account, and using them as a link to trends and info via their desktop PCs and iPads.

Why not create an account? Some teens are already restricted in their app use by their parents, and have been accessing these apps without logging in since they were very young, in order to avoid detection and limits.

Again, logged out users can’t access all of the content on each platform, but logged out usage also won’t be impacted by these new bans, as the platform’s won’t have any way to restrict this.

In terms of how teens feel about the ban, the most common sentiment was that the approach is “dumb” and will not work.

Most teens seemed very confident that they’ll be able to work out a way to get around the new age checks and keep using their social apps as normal, or that they and their friends will simply migrate to other platforms to avoid the restrictions, with Lemon8 and Yope identified by some as key alternatives (Lemon8 was the most common response).

A couple of teens did also note that the restrictions will harm their ability to make money, or attract sponsorship opportunities. Some, like skateboarders and BMX riders, have the potential to monetize through sponsored content, which they’re worried that they’ll now lose as a result of the ban, which is seemingly an unintended side effect of the increased restriction.

This would only be a small number of teens, presumably, but then again, when you consider the expanded opportunities of influencer marketing, there are probably quite a few who have opportunities in this respect.

Another interesting note that almost every teen highlighted was that all of them are already well-versed in VPN use, and that they’re not seeing the warnings about teen accounts being cut off when they log in via VPN.

Most Australian schools (I’m guessing all schools) now implement restrictions on the websites that can be accessed via the school Wi-Fi, but students are able to get around this by using a VPN, and disguising their location.

As such, teens are well-versed in VPN connection, which could pose a significant problem for these new bans.

Another interesting note: Several teens noted that they’re confident that they’ll be able to beat any age estimation system by randomly clicking on videos that older people would watch to confuse the system. They’re also confident that they can use AI tools to beat facial ID, and even video ID checks.

How realistic that is in practice will come down to which age checking systems each platform uses, but with the Australian government not mandating a defined solution that each platform has to apply, there will be weak points in the overall system.  

Overall, however, most teens seemed largely unconcerned by the new bans. Most seemed pretty confident that things will figure themselves out pretty quick, and that they’ll either beat the systems put before them, or migrate to other apps.

Which, logically, is what you might expect, but it’ll be interesting to see just how long it takes for new social norms to take shape, and/or word to get around on how to break the new age checks.

Note: This is anecdotal response info based on my own interviews with maybe fifty or so teens in my local area over the past few months.