CANBERRA, July 31 — The proportion of Australian children with social media accounts fell by 10 percentage points in the first three months after the country’s world-first under-16 social media ban came into effect, according to new data.
Xinhua reported that the country's online safety watchdog, the eSafety Commissioner, released the first data on Friday from a long-term study tracking the progress of the social media ban.
It found that the proportion of under-16s with a social media account fell from 52.4 per cent in December, when the ban was implemented, to 42.1 per cent in March.
The proportion of children who reported using a social media platform, with or without an account, fell from 85.9 per cent to 81.5 per cent over the same period.
In March, the eSafety Commissioner said it was investigating Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube for failing to comply with the ban.
Under current laws, platforms that systematically fail to prevent under-16s from holding and using accounts can face fines worth up to AU$49.5 million (RM142.2 million).
In June, the federal government announced plans to double the maximum fine to AU$99 million (RM284.5 million).
The watchdog said the new report revealed that most under-16s who had social media accounts before the ban was implemented were still either retaining them or creating new ones in March due to platforms' failure to implement effective age-assurance measures.
