Social Media Companies Advise Caution Regarding Early Statistics on Australia’s Under-16 Prohibition
As lawmakers consider stricter sanctions and investigative powers for regulators, leading social media companies advised the Australian government not to place too much weight on early findings that most minors continue to use their products despite a historic under-16 prohibition.
Local executives of YouTube owner Google (GOOGL.O), Facebook and Instagram owner Meta (META.O), Snapchat (SNAP.N), and TikTok faced a Senate investigation after lawmakers pressed them on several studies, including one from Australia’s internet regulator that revealed about 80% of minors were still using social media months after the ban went into effect in December.
At a time when the eSafety Commissioner is exploring legal action against some platforms, accusing them of purposefully slow-walking compliance to prevent other jurisdictions from imitating it, the session revealed a persistent rift between politicians and big tech over whether the ban is effective.
Although the March statistics indicated that platforms were “failing to prevent the creation and recreation of accounts,” Commissioner Julie Inman Grant told the inquiry that the prohibition was beginning to show results, citing a slight decrease in the number of accounts belonging to minors.
Inman Grant stated, “We need to give it time, but we are seeing change.
“The behavior begins to shift when that active enforcement begins.
The probe is looking at changes that would increase the commissioner’s authority to demand information and documents from platforms and their third-party age assurance providers during investigations, as well as raise the potential penalty to A$99 million ($64 million).YouTube’s head of government relations, Rachel Lord, told the inquiry, “It is a point in time, it’s very early on, and we caution against over-reliance on that,” pointing out that the government’s most recent compliance data was released in March.
“The technologies that we are using to detect users at the 16 age boundary are evolving,” Lord continued. Age assurance technology was primarily developed around a cut-off of 18, which many countries perceive to be the transition from childhood to maturity.