ITNTW: Teens off TikTok? Will the social media ban actually work?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced last week that he plans on enforcing social media bans for children across Australia. If passed, the legislation would see it become illegal for kids under the age of 16 to use any social media platforms, including Tiktok and Snapchat, two leading platforms within the demographic. 

The push for legislation comes after increasing concerns for the safety of children using the apps, especially concerning issues of cyber bullying. The passing of 12-year old Charlotte O’Brien furthered these worries amongst the wider public. There are now calls for immediate action to be taken to ensure the safety of children.

But will the laws actually work? 

The definition of social media as per the Online Safety Act is; an electronic service that satisfies the following conditions:

1. The sole or primary purpose of the service is to enable online social interaction between two or more end users;
2. The service allows end users to link to, or interact with, some or all of the other end users;
3. The service allows end users to post material on the service

These definitions make it difficult to distinguish which platforms will be included in the ban. TikTok and Instagram may be the obvious choices, but sites such as YouTube and Roblox also have similar features, yet aren’t always labelled as ‘social media’. With so many platforms and apps now offering actions of social interaction, it may be impossible to have enforcements across all of them.

And it seems enforcing these laws has already become a major loop hole in the proposed legislation. Albanese stated that neither parents nor children that continue to use social media will be punished, with Communications Minister Michelle Rowland also stating the laws would be more of an incentive for these major platforms to take action. 

Many influencers and avid social media users have also come out against the proposed laws, including Kat Clark, whose family has found recent fame thanks to TikTok. Kat’s youngest daughter Deja is only 13 years old and has millions of followers across various social media platforms. Kat’s video addressed the proposed laws, in which she stated she believed the verification of age should come at places such as the app store, and more responsibility should be put on parents to ensure they know who their kids are talking to and what content they are viewing. 

With so many considerations and loop holes, it will be interesting to see if the Government follows through with the proposed legislation, and how they plan to successfully implement restrictions to protect the wellbeing of Aussie children.