By Byron Kaye
SYDNEY, June 26 (Reuters) - Australia's prime minister vowed on Friday to bullet-proof laws supporting a social media ban for under-16s as the government prepares legal action against platforms amid a steady stream of evidence that the ban has had little impact on teen use.
The country's groundbreaking six-month-old experiment 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.
The Australian government plans to stress-test the law which bans platforms like Meta's Instagram and Google's YouTube from giving under-16s accounts.
COMPLIANCE TOOLS NOT WORKING
Numerous studies have shown age-assurance mechanisms, such as taking a selfie, that 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.
"What we want to do is to make sure that the laws are as strong as possible and that they will withstand any legal challenges which are made," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
One focus would be making sure that the eSafety commissioner, the country's internet regulator, was sufficiently empowered to do the job, he said.
He did not give further details about what steps the government would take and the regulator declined to comment.
The eSafety commissioner and Australia's Communications Minister Anika Wells have said they are preparing legal action against five of the biggest platforms, which face a fine of up to A$49.5 million ($34 million) if they are found to have systemically failed to uphold the ban.
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. Reddit was not immediately available for comment on Friday.
EXPERT SAYS NORMS AROUND SOCIAL MEDIA USE STARTING TO CHANGE
When Australia's ban went live last December, there were early reports that platforms had shut down millions of accounts, but parents have said and studies have shown that teen social media use is little changed.
A paper published in the British Medical Journal this week said 85% of Australians aged 12 to 15 were still using social media three months after the ban took effect, according to a study of 408 adolescents.
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, the paper said.
That broadly matched data shared by Australia's eSafety Commissioner in March which showed one-third of Australians under 16 were still on social media.
Experts on youth social media use say that a teething period in which platforms, parents and teenagers adjusted to the new rules was always to be expected.
Parents are now much more willing to police their kids' social media use, said Susan Sawyer, a professor of adolescent health at the University of Melbourne and an advisor to the eSafety commissioner. She is also co-author of a paper this month which found high social media use was linked to adverse mental health outcomes, especially in young teens.
"We do have evidence that those social norms are starting to change about what is the right age to get a phone," added Sawyer.
"As a pediatrician who is doing research in this space, I've got my antennae up. The conversations that people are having with me now are the sorts of conversations that no one was having with me six months ago," she said.
($1 = 1.4514 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
