When Australian school friends Charlie Pritchett and Liam Stuckey woke up to the nationwide social media ban last week, they had two very different experiences.
“I have been banned from Snapchat and TikTok, the only two social media platforms I really use,” Liam, 15.
But for Charlie, also 15, it was business as usual. “Everything kind of seemed the same. I’m on Reddit, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. Actually, I don’t know many people who have been banned.”
Nat Carter, 14, lost all his accounts on December 10, but says at least 10 of his underage friends still have access.
“I was surprised because I know more people who haven’t been banned than have been. It doesn’t really feel fair, to be honest. I don’t know how Snapchat decided to ban some people and not ban others.”
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant recently told the ABC “teething problems” were expected. She said she had faith in the tech companies’ information-gathering powers and that they would up their game.
Under the new law introduced on December 10, relevant social media platforms are expected to “take reasonable steps” to identify and remove accounts held by those under 16, or risk fines up to A$49.5 million ($57m).
Social media platforms - including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube - are required to deactivate all accounts registered to users under 16, while new users are prevented from holding an account until after they turn 16.
The onus is solely on the platforms, with parents and young people exempt from penalties.
Liam said so far, it was not working.
“There are so many ways around this ban, I just don’t see things changing for a lot of people. Because people are doing things like, if they’re a woman, getting their mums to do facial recognition and if they’re boys, getting their dads to do it. I think it would have been interesting to see how people would have coped but it’s just not very effective at the moment.”
Charlie agreed. ”One of our friends, he looks quite mature for his age, he did a face scan and the scan said that he was 18 to 20. So he’s still got it.”
Liam is just four months away from turning 16 and Charlie has 10 months to wait. It’s an awkward age to go through the digital transition.
Charlie has used social media since Year 4 (about 10 years old), Liam since Year 7 (about 13). But Charlie was fairly confident he would keep his accounts.
“I mean, if they figured out Liam was on it, I don’t see why they wouldn’t be able to figure me out, but then how do they know the difference between a 16-year-old and a 15-year-old?” he said.
“I’ve seen on Tiktok, [Prime Minister Anthony] Albanese saying things like they’re gonna go through it again but I don’t think so, because there’s not that much difference between me and a 16-year-old, especially with what we’re consuming on the internet.”
Each social media platform can decide how it implements the new regulations, but the government has asked that simply requesting ID is not the only way a user’s age is checked.
The parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Meta, has so far chosen not to explain its method, while Snapchat is using behavioural signals based on account activity to estimate age, alongside a process linked to holding an Australian bank account, checking a passport or driver licence, or through facial age recognition, where a selfie is analysed by an external firm.
Snapchat have said age verification would be more effective if part of a device’s operating system rather than on individual apps.
It’s a complex business. Fourteen-year-old Nat said widespread distrust of social media among his peers means ages were often falsified, even before the ban came into place.
“I know it’s a really common thing for people about my age to say that they were older than they actually were on Snapchat. On my account, it says that I’m 16 too. It just makes you feel like you’re not giving all your social identity to the app,” he explains.
Time spent on social media varied between the teenagers the author spoke to.
Charlie estimates he spends two hours a day. “I just scroll for hours [on TikTok], and then I message my friends as well. And on Reddit, I kind of just look at things. I’m into Pokémon cards and stuff like that.
Liam said he was hitting just 15 minutes a day.
“I didn’t use Snapchat much anyway. I kind of just had it in case I didn’t have someone’s number. As for Tiktok, same as Charlie, I just used it to scroll a little bit but I usually set myself limits on how much screen time I can use.”
Nat was predominantly on Snapchat. His main use? “Just communication ... It felt like if you weren’t on Snapchat, then you weren’t included in some things, you would miss out on some group chats and other things.”
He said while he had most of his close friend’s phone numbers, his access to his wider social circles will change with the ban.
“Yeah, it’s a little bit annoying, because there’s some people’s numbers I don’t have.”
And while Liam said apps such as TikTok were used for a “dopamine hit”, he and Charlie were concerned about access to information and ideas, particularly political ones.
“I kind of like talking to new people and also seeing new ideas,” Charlie said. “Especially about more political topics. I see a lot of different political things that contradict my opinion, and it’s just kind of good to see those.”
“I agree, it’s the main place I got that too,” Liam said.
But as recent data showed a 450% rise in cyber bullying reports, these teens agreed the ban could help prevent online harm.
“It would suck if you’re getting cyber bullied,” Nat, who knows someone who was bullied online, said. “Once you’re past 16, I guess you’re kind of more responsible. It stops really young people from having to face that, right? I think 15/16 is actually probably a pretty good age.”
Charlie was torn: “I’ve got very conflicting opinions on that. Obviously, I’m biased, and I don’t want [the ban] to happen but I do think it’s a good thing for the younger generations.”
Elsa Bannon, 12, is that younger generation and she too is supportive of the ban.
“Though I am a little disappointed if I need to search for something, like a tutorial on how to do something on YouTube, then I have to use my parents’ phone instead”.
Elsa was asked what age she would have liked to sign up to social media platforms.
“People around you influence your decisions. If my friends were on it a lot, then I’d probably do it sooner but if it was just my opinion, I think I would have done it close to 16, because my family and friends and school have been talking about it, and it doesn’t sound ... very safe to be on it at a young age.”
She got her own phone two years ago, but it is regulated by her parents.
“I’ve got a time limit, so it turns off after a certain time – not the calling and messages, just games and watching TV late at night and restrictions on what I can watch and social media which I agree with.
“I watch a lot of Netflix. I really love listening to music and I use a lot of messaging and WhatsApp to text my friends and my family.”
While Elsa agreed with the ban, she thought other methods could have been trialled first.
“Maybe if you’re underage, you can’t comment on stuff, you can’t see the comments or there aren’t any comments at all.”
Her mother Hanna Martensson said she was relieved. “To me, it feels like a good idea, even if it’s not going to work 100%, because there’s so much that we don’t know about how it affects young people’s brains and emotions and their development.
“And that’s also where it seems like a lot of the bullying happens. And I want to protect them as much as I can from that.”
It’s something the teenagers agreed about.
“I think I’ve done the right thing,” Nat, who is off to catch up with a friend on the first day of the holidays, said. “I would have arranged that through Snapchat, but I did it through messages.”