‘It didn’t work bro I’m still here’: Kids brag as they beat social media ban

While some children under 16 woke up to the discovery they had been booted from the social media platforms they know and love, others got to spend Wednesday morning living life like it was a regular day – because nothing had changed for them.

Within hours of Australia’s world-leading social media ban officially coming into effect, Communications Minister Anika Wells said more than 200,000 TikTok accounts belonging to users believed to be aged under 16 had been deactivated. But many young people purporting to be under 16 remain on the age-restricted platform, and are happily gloating about it.

“Dear Anthony Alabanese [sic], I got past your ban,” one user wrote in a TikTok video that was flooded with comments from users claiming to be under 16, living in Australia, and still on the platform on Wednesday morning.

Some have taken to time-stamping their victory, with common comments taking the format: “We still standing its [sic] 10 dec 8.05[am].” Another simply quoted lyrics from Elton John’s hit I’m Still Standing in celebration.

Others say they have been booted from their main TikTok accounts but can access the app through their secret back-ups. Some say they’ve been banned on one platform, such as Snapchat or Instagram, but can use others, such as TikTok.

Many flooded Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s TikTok account with messages noting the ban, which Albanese told ABC Radio Melbourne was “already a success” 10 hours after it came into effect, had failed.

“Hey mate still here,” one user wrote underneath a TikTok video Albanese shared on Wednesday morning spruiking the ban.

“It didn’t work bro I’m still here,” another wrote.

There have been doubts about the efficacy of the age-assurance methods implemented by age-restricted platforms, of course. The eSafety commissioner has not recommended specific age-assurance technologies or methods to age-restricted platforms – aside from asking for a “waterfall approach” to ensure there are more options for users than uploading government-issued ID documentation – and age estimation facial scans are known to have biases and struggle with accuracy when it comes to children’s faces.

But eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has been clear that it’s expected not every user under 16 will be kicked off age-restricted platforms right away.

“There are going to be technology teething issues and it takes a while to replicate through these major systems,” Inman Grant said on Nine’s Today program on Wednesday morning.

“We may see some cases, we may see some blatant non-compliance, but we’ve got plans for that. And you know, the action won’t be immediate.”

As the legislation stands currently, if children continue to successfully circumvent the ban, neither they nor their parents will be punished.

The responsibility is on age-restricted platforms to comply with the law, which means they are responsible for confirming a user’s age and ensuring they can’t have an account if they are under 16. Non-compliance carries a maximum penalty of $49.5 million for the offending tech giant.

The eSafety commissioner expects platforms to detect when a virtual private network (known as a VPN, it masks your IP address and therefore can make it appear as if you’re in another location) has been used, and detect if that user is in Australia and, if they are, if they are under 16.

Social media providers are also encouraged to have reporting systems in place on their platforms, so users can flag other accounts they suspect belong to under-16s.

There are some social media platforms in which users under the age of 16 who have been kicked off their favourite apps are finding a haven … for now.

The top three most popular apps on Apple’s App Store on Wednesday morning were Lemon8, Yope, and Coverstar, all of which are alternative social media platforms not included on the eSafety commissioner’s age-restricted platforms list that bill themselves as dupes of age-restricted platforms TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat.

Wells addressed this last week, noting that she and the eSafety commissioner are looking at “migratory patterns”.

“If we find that because they’ve been logged out of Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok [or] what have you, they end up on Lemon8, then we will look at whether the harm has transferred there and whether we need to add them to the list,” Wells said.

“Should any particular platform like Lemon8 … become the new source, I will not hesitate to act.”

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