The number of you who confidently commented something incorrect because you couldn’t be bothered to read the 13 sentence article is as unsurprising as it is disappointing.
Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data
31–40 of 47 posts
Re: Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data
#32Related: "Australia's social media ban has failed (reuters.com)" 02.aug.2026 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49141877 127 comments
Re: Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data
#33I hate how this is described as a social media ban. It's a social media delay.
Similar to delaying access to alcohol or nicotine because it’s known to be harmful to children. That’s never really framed as a ban.
Re: Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data
#34I hate how this is described as a social media ban. It's a social media delay.
Primarily it's social media forced deanonymization, with "think of the children" as an excuse.
Re: Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data
#35Nature finds a way :-p Also, who allows their 10-12yr old children to use TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat, FFS!
A proper FF back to you, Sir. We are quite far out on the parental spectrum with regards to controlling their devices and I can attest to ultimately having no control at all. They will find a way. (And that’s natural in a way.) You just hope that next to controls, the talks about keeping your balance in life and being aware of dangers, even when everyone does XYZ, help in the long run.
Social media are a scourge on society and a US hegemonic instrument. Who cares about this opinion…? (Hint: nobody, it’s about parenting the three I want to help grow up in life.)
Re: Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data
#36The teeth have to apply to the social media companies. Fines for under-16 users.
Such a thing would require mandatory age verification of every user of the platform, which is obviously a significant privacy complication.
We do not need to give into the solutions supported by the tech companies. Voters need to vote for a solution that restricts them, not us.
I say lock down a legal definition for social media that only applies to sites that alter what you see based on algorithms. Ban them on all internet connections by default until the account owner undoes the block and the block will be per device when it comes to phones. We can also block these sites in all wifi routers until someone disables it there too.
Yes, adults can just unlock it for their kids, but that is something that could be addressed if a problem. All solutions can be bypassed by a willing parent.
Re: Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
And did you check where the information comes from?
AFP is where France24 got their information, and both AFP and France24 are reliable sources of news. Maybe you had an issue with the source AFP relied on?
So no, you didn't, the info comes from an app for parental surveillance. This is in no way a random sample that would be needed for reliable data
AFP is subject to the same scrutiny as others, and definitely put out some terrible pieces, badly sourced from time to time
Re: Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data
#38Misleading title. Usage dropped after the ban and has risen slightly since the initial drop. The article does very little besides report this. It speculates that it might be due to vpn or the ban not working. It doesn't even go into how the ban works or and basic journalistic follow up questions. Does anyone have a better source or info why it's not effective
Source: Australian, with teenager.
1. It's not a ban on using social media, it's a requirement for age verification to create an account. This only limits usage on the few platforms that force an account to do anything.
2. The technical controls platforms implement are, unsurprisingly, generally quite weak. Kids are crafty enough to circumvent them, and share how freely.
3. Wannabe-influencer parents just create accounts for their kids, making the circumvention trivial.
4. There are no consequences for using a social media account while under 16.
I think the final point is the main one, though. By design there's no mechanism in place for the government to take any action if a kid gets onto social media, only if a platform fails to implement age checks that satisfy the legislation's criteria. So platforms all implemented tokenistic age checks. Platforms don't care, or need to care, if they get bypassed. The government doesn't care.
If I were a more suspicious man I'd say that either the point was never to reduce the use of social media by kids in the first place, or it was well intentioned but railroaded into toothlessness by lobbyists.
Re: Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data
#39Nature finds a way :-p Also, who allows their 10-12yr old children to use TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat, FFS!
A proper FF back to you, Sir. We are quite far out on the parental spectrum with regards to controlling their devices and I can attest to ultimately having no control at all. They will find a way. (And that’s natural in a way.) You just hope that next to controls, the talks about keeping your balance in life and being aware of dangers, even when everyone does XYZ, help in the long run. Social media are a scourge on s…
Maybe the issue is that they should not have their own devices at young age.
Time limited use on a supervised family computer might be an alternative idea.
Re: Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data
#40Who would have thought banning something would make it attractive to kids. Radical.