Is Australia’s Teen Social Media Ban Actually Working?

The Australian government continues to claim that its teen social media ban has been a big success, with more than 4.7 million accounts believed to be operated by teens either deactivated or restricted since the implementation of the new laws last month.

And that is a big amount, especially in a country with a population of only 28 million people. Meta alone says that it’s removed 544k accounts in accordance with the new rules, while Snapchat reportedly had around 440k users aged between 13 and 15 in its app.

But is the teen social media ban really working, or have Australian teens just worked out how to avoid the new restrictions, and are therefore still accessing their favorite apps?

Well, I’m in Australia, so I can ask them, and while the responses I can gather on my own are anecdotal, they do seem to reflect the broader mood among AUS teens.

And that is that they don’t really care.

Most of them are still using social apps, either through a VPN or a secondary handle, and while some teens have had their accounts restricted, many have just started up new profiles on desktop, avoiding mobile app identifier limits, which they can then log into on a mobile device.

Which could mean that the Australian government’s topline figues are not indicative, with the real data of note likely to be in new account sign-ups, and the rise in log-ins using VPNs, which we don’t have access to.

Only the platforms have that, and there’s not really any incentive for them to share such. Because all of the platforms have voiced their opposition to the new rules, noting that teens are actually better off logging into their apps, where they’ve worked for years to refine their teen user protections, as opposed to switching to other platforms, which offer less security.

Indeed, many Australian teens had reportedly switched to other apps to maintain connection, though those early trends, in response to the new laws, were evidently short-lived.

Looking at Sensor Tower data, Yope, which was one of the alternative apps discussed, did see a rise in interest throughout December, following the introduction of teen social media ban on December 10th. But it hasn’t maintained that download momentum, and is now sitting at #250 on the AUS download charts (iOS).

Other apps that had been raised as possible alternatives were Lemon8, which has no significant rise in download activity, and more recently UpScrolled, which did see a big jump in downloads this week, but hadn’t even cracked the top 400 before that.

So it seems like teens aren’t switching over, and moving on to less restricted platforms as yet. Which either means that they’ve accepted their fate, and they’re not accessing social media at all, or they’re evading the latest teen detection measures, and still using their regular apps.

I would hazard a guess that the latter is more likely, because no matter what politicians may prefer, kids aren’t going back to playing tiddlywinks and hanging out at the local milk bar for social connection.

Whether you like it or not, social media now plays a key role in teen social life, and is going to into the future, due to advances in connectivity, access, opportunity, etc. Some have suggested that Australia’s teen social media restrictions will be more relevant for the next generation of teens, as they won’t ever start on social media till later in life, but that also suggests that your social circle is limited to only kids your age, and that you’ll be willing to be excluded from such till you reach the right threshold.

You were a teenager once, does that ring true? Would you have just accepted that there’s a whole other arena of social discussion happening among people you know that you just can’t access because you’re not old enough?

There are various ways to get around the Australian social media bans, and teens already know every one, and it’s arrogant for the Australian government to assume some moral victory without definitive data.

I’ll be watching the quarterly performance updates from Meta and Snap in particular to see if there’s any marked shift in Australian usage, while if I was the government, I’d also be seeking more insight into related trends to actually understand whether the approach is working, as opposed to that 4.7 million accounts banned number.

Because really, that doesn’t mean anything, and while public-facing officials may want to present this as a victory, in order to win votes, there’s much more to the story that we can’t see as yet.