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usonian

(23,521 posts)
Sat Dec 13, 2025, 05:00 PM Dec 13

Australian teens were kicked off social media this week. Some are back already

Australia thinks it's smarter than kids. Famous last words.



https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/12/australia/australia-social-media-kids-intl-hnk-dst

Fourteen-year-old cheerleader Lucy Brooks briefly lost some friends on Snapchat when Australia’s ban on social media came into effect on Wednesday, but within 24 hours, they were back. Many had made new accounts, with some borrowing the faces of parents and older friends who were happy to help them evade age detection technology.

When Australia imposed its world-leading ban on social media for under-16s, critics predicted other platforms would quickly replace the 10 banned sites that include teen favorites Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram.

But perhaps they didn’t anticipate how easy it would be for teenagers to pop back up again on the same platforms, using the same kind of tricks that teens in the United Kingdom used when their government introduced its Online Safety Act in July.

“A lot of the time it was with the parents’ knowledge, but people are also using AI-generated pictures of people and videos, like getting AI to make a 40-year-old person … to get past it as well,” said Lucy, who lost access to Instagram but is still on Snapchat and TikTok.


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Australian teens were kicked off social media this week. Some are back already (Original Post) usonian Dec 13 OP
The Internet and Social Media genie has been out of the bottle for a long time, not gonna go back in... wcmagumba Dec 13 #1
Of course they did. Duh Srkdqltr Dec 13 #2

wcmagumba

(5,619 posts)
1. The Internet and Social Media genie has been out of the bottle for a long time, not gonna go back in...
Sat Dec 13, 2025, 05:07 PM
Dec 13

Despite what some stick in the mud officials desire, kids are smart and want to be talking and videoing to each other...

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