Some Australian kids are already outsmarting the government and the tech companies.
At a harbourside park in Sydney, teenagers told Sky News they’ve found a way around the ban by using VPNs or their parents’ social media accounts.
I met a dozen teenagers in the suburb of Balmain, and almost all of them were still accessing social media.
Felix Webster is 14 and is still using his social media accounts despite the ban: “I think it’s just being slow and it’s going to block everyone within the next week.”
However, Felix says “everyone’s going to find a way around it easily”.
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Kira Solanki, 14, wants to “wind down” after school and says social media is a way to “take a break, but now [I] can’t do that any more”.
Australia’s law to restrict 10 social media apps (so far) to kids aged under 16 is an extraordinary move by a government determined to try to stamp out cyberbullying and online addiction.
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Raphael Williams Veazey argues kids can still be bullied in real life.
“I think it’s a bit stupid,” Raphael says. “They could have used different measures, instead of an outright ban for everyone.”
He also explains that he tricked his social media platform into thinking he was older.
Australia’s restrictions still allow children to use messaging services like WhatsApp, but TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat are all banned.
With summer school holidays barely a week away, 14-year-old Kobe Staunton expects it could be a quiet one.
“It’ll be pretty like lonely and boring, because I can’t speak to my friends on most of the apps.”
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Some parents are also concerned about whether the ban will really work. Children can still look at social media apps, like YouTube, even if they don’t have an account.
Ryan Alridge says, “There’s a lot of good stuff [in the law] but it’s not necessarily going to suddenly save all the kids from harm.”
Australians are dealing with a brave new world of social media rules, but it’s still unknown whether this nationwide social experiment will be enough to get children off their devices and outdoors.
