By Samuel McKeith
SYDNEY, June 27 (Reuters) - Australia said on Saturday it would double the maximum penalty it can impose on tech firms found to have failed to uphold a ground-breaking social media ban for children, as evidence mounts that the ban has had little effect on teen use.
The government will also strengthen the information-gathering powers of its internet regulator, the eSafety Commissioner, allowing it to compel social media companies to provide evidence of what they have done to stop under-16s from getting an account.
Under the changes, the maximum penalty for systematic failures to uphold the ban jumps to A$99 million ($68 million) from A$49.5 million.
The government reiterated that eSafety is actively investigating the possible non-compliance of five platforms: Meta's Instagram and Facebook, Google's YouTube, Snap's Snapchat and TikTok.
Australia's six-month-old ban is being closely watched by many nations seeking to emulate it due to concerns about the impact of social media on youth mental and physical health. Britain this month said it planned restrictions that go further as gaming and live-streaming platforms will also be affected.
"I'm heartened by the shift in conversation and the global momentum we’ve seen since introducing the social media minimum age, but it’s clear big tech are not doing enough to comply with the law – there are still too many children on social media," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement.
The statement said that since the ban has been put in place more than 5 million under-16 accounts have been deactivated or restricted.
But numerous studies have also shown that age-assurance mechanisms, such as taking a selfie, which have been put in place by tech companies, are easily circumvented by children and that in many cases, the children have never been asked to prove their age.
According to a study published in the British Medical Journal this week, which looked at 408 adolescents, 85% of Australians aged 12 to 15 were still using social media three months after the ban took effect.
Two-thirds of underage users stayed online by self-declaring an age over 16 or posting a selfie that the platform accepted as over 16, it said.
In April, an industry body representing tech suppliers blamed problems enforcing the ban on social media platforms' weak deployment of tools available to run age checks rather than the limits of the technology.
"Based on the regular updates I receive from the eSafety Commissioner, it is clear to me that social media platforms are adopting tricks straight out of the big tech playbook and doing the bare minimum to get by," Minister for Communications Anika Wells said in the statement.
In addition to empowering the regulator to demand information from the social media platforms, planned updates to the law will also allow it to gather information from third parties such as age-assurance or app store providers to assist in testing claims made by the platforms.
A spokesperson for the prime minister said that the timing of when the amendments to the law would be introduced to parliament had not yet been decided, but the government would have more to say on the matter soon.
Message board website Reddit is separately challenging the ban in Australia's highest court, seeking to overturn it on free speech grounds. The government has said it will defend the lawsuit.
($1 = 1.4499 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
