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Federal government data, released on Friday, shows the bans [on children accessing social media apps] are having a significant impact, but the eSafety Commission has declined to release details on how many people have been removed from each platform.
You probably know the rule – anything before a but can be ignored. And “declined to release” means we either don’t actually have it or we don’t want to embarrass ourselves.
Under laws which took effect on December 10, platforms including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube need to take reasonable steps to ensure children under 16 don’t hold accounts.
[…] eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said some children had found ways around the rules, but the restrictions were still worthwhile.
“We don’t expect safety laws to eliminate every single breach,” she told reporters in Brisbane on Friday.
“If we did, speed limits would have failed, because people speed. Drinking limits would have failed because, believe it or not, some kids do get access to alcohol.
“We’re preventing predatory social media companies from accessing our children.”
Nah, if just about everybody speeds it’s like saying speed limits are working because a few people don’t speed.
[…] eSafety was also working closely with tech platforms to ensure their age verification systems were calibrated correctly and people weren’t being banned unfairly, or allowed in when they shouldn’t be, Inman Grant added.
Mmm. Sure. Kind of like a colour-blind referee judging a painting competition.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the ban was a “source of Australian pride” and claimed parents and children had written to the government supporting the laws.
“There’s a lot of younger people that I’ve spoken to who speak about, ‘gee, we wish that was in place when I was 13 or 14. It’s making a difference to my younger brother or sister’,” Albanese said.
Obviously Albo doesn’t understand the meaning of schadenfreude.
[…] While some teenagers have managed to bypass the age limits, the data shows a large number have already been booted off platforms.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, this week said it had taken down more than half a million Australian user accounts before the ban.
Meta said between December 4 and 11, it took down 330,639 Instagram accounts, 173,497 Facebook accounts and 39,916 Threads accounts it believed belonged to people younger than 16.
Meaningless crap, as the ban started on December 10.
The truth is the ban isn’t working – we all know it. And in any case it’s impossible to measure if it is.
Imagine little Bazza, gets booted off Facebook because he put down he was a 15-year-old. He opens a new account, sets his age to 101 and to prove it puts on an Albo mask. Done. And the government chalks it up as an example of the ban working.
Here’s a hint Albo and Judy. Everybody is laughing at you and we also know what you’re actually trying to do. My advice is to just put on bikini.
Source: https://www.1news.co.nz/2026/01/16/australia-social-media-ban-a-success-with-47m-accounts-blocked/
