Arya News - Teenagers in Australia are cheating the government’s world-first social media ban and openly mocking the Prime Minister on banned platforms.
Teenagers in Australia are cheating the government’s world-first social media ban and openly mocking the Prime Minister on banned platforms.
Young people told The Telegraph how they were getting past the new age-verification technology by frowning at the camera. Others told Anthony Albanese to “f--- off” after accessing sites such as Instagram and Snapchat, which the new law has banned for those under the age of 16.
The group of self-styled “social media survivors” had skirted the ban within minutes of it being introduced on Wednesday, raising concerns that the policy is not fit for purpose.
They trolled Mr Albanese after he’d told them to “read a book” or learn how to play an instrument.
“How it feels still having social media,” one young girl said in a video posted online showing her dancing. She added a hashtag telling the Prime Minister to “f--- off”. Another called him a derogatory term before saying they’d got past the government’s ban.
Young people described how they were getting round the ban by fooling age-verification measures - Saeed Khan/AFP
It took Noah Jones, a 15-year-old schoolboy from Sydney, just a few minutes – and his brother’s ID card – to rejoin Instagram after the app alerted him he looked too young.
Snapchat also required Noah to verify his age. “I just looked at [the camera], frowned a little bit, and it said I was over 16,” he told The Telegraph.
Noah was backed by his mother, Renee Jones, who said her son’s development should not be “stunted by poor legislation” and that embracing “this phenomenal age of technology” was as important as his sport and music practice.
Ms Jones said her children would be safer having open discussions about online safety risks than being forced to go behind their parents’ backs to connect with friends or watch videos.
It is why she is supporting him to take his fight against the government to the High Court of Australia, in a case to be heard in February.
Ten social media platforms – including TikTok, X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Reddit – face fines of £25m if they allow underage Australians to keep or create an account, under the world-first ban led by Mr Albanese’s Labor government.
The move, which will apply to around 1.4 million children, is being closely watched by the UK, the US, and the European Union as other countries consider ways to manage the harm caused by social media .
‘I just looked at [the camera], frowned a little bit, and it said I was over 16,’ said Noah Jones, a 15-year-old Sydney schoolboy - Rick Rycroft/AP
But Noah warned that the ban would mean that teenagers will be more likely to turn to social media platforms that are less regulated.
“Where do you think everyone’s going to go?,” Noah said. “Straight to worse social media platforms – they’re less regulated, and they’re more dangerous.”
In Queensland, Zarla Macdonald was considering joining Coverstar, one of the lesser known apps that topped download charts ahead of the new ban.
The 14-year-old aspiring actress had so far managed to stay on TikTok and Snapchat because the artificial intelligence mistook her for 20.
“You have to show your face, turn it to the side, open your mouth, like just show movement in your face,” said the Gold Coast teenager. “But it doesn’t really work.”
Kris Paris, 15, from Sydney, estimated one third of his peers had found a loophole by “either using VPNs, parents’ accounts, getting a new number or using stock images from Google for face verification”.
VPNs [virtual private networks] , which allow teenagers to disguise their locations as other than Australia, have been advertised on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube in recent days.
Other teenagers who spoke to The Telegraph questioned how the ban was going to be applied and managed when they were being blocked by sites such as Instagram but not Snapchat and YouTube on a browser
“The more the government tries to stop young people doing something, the more they’re going to want to do it,” Fatima said.
“Someone could literally, like, use their mum’s makeup to draw on wrinkles on their face, and it’s going to let them in.”
Children shared online tutorials, explaining how pouting, filters, wearing make-up and even using Halloween masks would trick apps which asked them to take selfies to verify their age.
Teams of researchers in Melbourne in New York said they had demonstrated how age estimation technology could be tricked by users pulling faces and donning costumes including “old man masks” and moustaches.
“The research shows that there are holes in the system,” Prof Shaanan Cohney, a computer law expert at the University of Melbourne, said. “We’re not yet confident enough to know whether those holes are big enough that the policy is misguided or not.”
Mr Albanese acknowledged that the age verification was “not perfect” but insisted it would save Australian lives.
”But also for the global community, who are looking at Australia, and saying, ‘if Australia can do it, why can’t we?’,” he said.
The Australian government hopes their ban will inspire other countries to follow suit - Hollie Adams/Reuters
But more than 140 Australian and international experts warned against the ban, and have urged other countries to follow with caution.
Inconsistencies in the technology and questions over how fines would be enforced showed the government should have spent more time preparing the legislation, said Dr Joanne Orlando, who was an advisor on the federal age verification trials.
“This ban has been rushed, and they [age verifications] are proving to be quite weak,” said Dr Orlando, a Western Sydney University professor and author of Generation Connected.
”I think we’re seeing a panic sweep the nation right now. There’s just a lot of confusion, because things we’ve been told aren’t correct.”
Noah called the government “lazy” for banning children instead of stopping paedophiles and bullies.
“If they put all this effort into fixing social media, then we could make it safe for not only under-16s, but everyone,” he said.
The Albanese government is also facing potential legal challenges from the social media companies, with Reddit the first to signal it was consulting solicitors this week and Meta joining the chorus of critics.
Meta, the owner of Instagram and Facebook, told The Telegraph: “We’ve consistently raised concerns that this poorly developed law could push teens to less regulated platforms or apps. We’re now seeing those concerns become reality.”
Anika Wells, the communications minister, said the government was “confident” it would win in court.
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