Teenagers are already preparing to thwart Australia’s teen social media ban, using platforms like TikTok to share ideas about how to trick platforms into letting them stay and sourcing alternative apps.
With two months to go until the government’s “social media minimum age” or “delay” policy set to come into effect, teenagers are already making moves, including claiming their accounts are actually being run by their parents, to stay on the platforms — despite a requirement that companies take “reasonable steps” to restrict access.
Zoe is a 14-year-old who lives in Sydney and is opposed to the ban. “I think social media needs to be safer, a lot of people my age think that it needs to be safer, but pretty much everyone agrees that it shouldn’t be banned,” she said on the phone.
The Year 8 student has been posting TikTok videos talking about the ban, which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views.
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In a “get ready with me”-style video, Zoe films herself doing her skincare routine before school as she explains and criticises the ban. And, in a September video that’s been seen more than half a million times, she tells people how to get around it.
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Her approach — one that’s become popular among TikTok users — is about trying to convince the platform that a teen’s account is actually run by a parent.
Zoe’s video recommends that teens change the email address linked to their social media account to their parents’ email address (or, if their parents already have an account on that platform, “make one [another email address] for them”). Crikey has seen dozens of TikTok accounts with phrases like “managed by parents” or “account shared by [child] and [parent]” in their bios.
Other users recommend changing an account user’s birthday to older than 16 and avoiding posting about age and age-specific matters.
In Zoe’s case, her parents are involved in the decision to help her avoid the ban (her father Mark says the government “shouldn’t be excluding [teens] from a large part of life”). She says her mum is also logged into her TikTok account so that she can monitor its use.
It’s not clear if other teens undertaking these methods have cooperating parents who are knowingly managing their accounts.
Teenage TikTok users post videos on circumventing the teen social media ban (Image: TikTok)
While each platform’s exact approach to checking users’ ages will differ and are still not known, many of the techniques being promoted by teens are unlikely to work, says child psychologist and founder of Digital Nutrition Jocelyn Brewer.
“It’s not going to help them. And if it doesn’t, they’re just going to get around it by going on more nefarious, less secure platforms,” she said.
The government has only confirmed a handful of platforms that will be subject to the ban, so some teens are already proposing using social media websites and apps they believe will be outside of the ban. Zoe is recommending Lemon8, a ByteDance-owned Instagram clone.
Under the teen social media ban law and its rules, there is no distinction for teens whose accounts are “managed” or “owned” by a parent.
Platforms like Meta do use algorithmic analysis of posted content to flag whether someone might be under the age of 16. For example, posting about being in Year 8 at school could be a signal. There is no evidence to suggest that declaring an account is managed by a parent would be enough to convince the platform that a user’s account belongs to an adult.
Similarly, changing details about an account to avoid automatically being included in the ban prior to its implementation may not work either. The eSafety commissioner has told social media companies they should be monitoring for people who are changing the birth date on their accounts prior to the ban coming into effect.
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The government has said from the outset that it expects some teens to get around the ban.
Parents (or other adults) assisting children with circumvention has been repeatedly raised as a possibility throughout the development of the policy undergirding the ban. There is no penalty for teens who manage to circumvent the ban, or parents who enable this.
A model that would have formally allowed teens to maintain an account with parental consent was mooted by the government when considering how to implement the ban.
Teens like Zoe are under no illusion that these methods will definitely work as a way of getting around the ban.
Instead, Zoe is trying to help others understand the law so they can get around it. This includes trying to dissuade other teens from using methods that she believes won’t work — like declaring your account is parent-managed via the ephemeral TikTok Stories feature.
“Putting it in your stories isn’t enough,” Zoe said.
Will you be helping your child get around the teen social media ban?
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