With the ban going into effect, I thought it might be helpful to allow people to share their experiences about the Australian teen social media ban and how it has affected them.
Note: For the Aussie Zone lemmy requirements, see here. Please use that thread for an Aussie Zone specific discussions or questions.
Good luck, everyone!
Sounds like the ban didn’t work very well !
Here are some other comments from parents who contacted the ABC as part of an audience call-out looking at the immediate impacts of the social media ban:
“My son opened TikTok this morning and received this message: ‘The social media ban has come into effect. Your age is estimated to be 18 years old.’ He is 11.” — David, Vic
“My 13-year-old son has passed the age verification face scan by hiding his teeth and scrunching up his face. It guessed his age as 30+. In real life he passes for a 10-year-old.” — Matt, Qld
“My son is almost 16 and has been kicked off Snapchat already on the 9th December but my daughter who is 14 still hasn’t been asked to verify her age on the app. We know multiple children who are 13 who passed the Face ID scan.” — Melissa, WA
“My 13-year-old daughter still has access to all her social media accounts this morning, and she verified her age via facial scanning. I am hoping that they are still working their way through and she will be booted off soon. If not then it’s a fail for us.” — Alison, NSW
“I am under the age of 16 and have not been banned on any platform. Many of my friends in my grade are also under 16 and not one of them has been banned yet.” — Julius, Qld
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-10/social-media-ban-day-one-teen-access/106126706
Random thought.
I’m aware that COPPA applies to American kids (and specifically kids under 13) but Google and YouTube got in huge trouble for collecting kids data… and now to ‘protect kids’ the government has created a situation where these companies are again involved in collecting biometric data from minors.
And I have no idea whether or not it’s stored, but the kids are passing as not being minors so that data may not be treated accordingly.
Bruh.