Australian children able to bypass age limit set by social media platforms: Report

Children in Australia are able to easily bypass the minimum age limit imposed by social media platforms, a report by the country's online safety regulator showed on Thursday, ahead of a landmark ban by the government on access for those under 16.

ESafety's report combined results from a national survey on social media usage by 8 to 15-year-olds, along with responses from eight services including Alphabet's YouTube, Meta's Facebook and Amazon's Twitch.

In November, Australia approved a social media ban for children under 16, setting a benchmark for jurisdictions around the world. The ban is set to take effect at the end of 2025.

Social media companies largely do not allow those under 13 to access their platforms.

The watchdog's report found 80 per cent of Australian children aged eight to 12 used social media in 2024, with YouTube, ByteDance's TikTok, Meta's Instagram and Snap's Snapchat being the most popular services.

All services except Reddit required date of birth at its sign-up stage, however they all relied only on self-declaration with no other age assurance tools, the report said.

"There is still significant work to be done by any social media platforms relying on truthful self-declaration to determine age with enforcement of the government's minimum age legislation on the horizon," eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.

YouTube, which is set to be exempted from the upcoming ban, is the only service that allows under-13 usage when attached to a family account with parental supervision. Still, none of the 8 to 12-year-olds who had accounts reported shutdowns due to being underage.

Ninety-five per cent of teens under 16 used at least one of the eight services surveyed, the report said.

While TikTok, Twitch, Snapchat and YouTube used tools to proactively detect users under 13, others did not, despite having the technology available, the report said.

"Since the start of 2023, our... proactive age detection tools, have resulted in the removal of more than one million Australian users suspected of being under the age of 13," a TikTok spokesperson said.

A spokesperson for Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, said the company supported age-appropriate experiences for children online, but it should be the responsibility of app stores to enforce age restrictions.

Reddit declined to comment, while Twitch, Snapchat and YouTube did not immediately respond to requests for comments.

A vast majority of services had undertaken research to improve their age assurance setups, while some had easy pathways for users to report someone being under 13, the report added.