Australia’s teen social media ban won’t require TikTok or YouTube to stop children from using their algorithmically driven short-video platforms, significantly undermining the government’s major motivations for the policy.
Experiments by Crikey show that TikTok and YouTube Shorts users are algorithmically recommended videos by both platforms without needing to log in — meaning that these services won’t be affected by the Albanese government’s bill which seeks to regulate only logged-in users.
Among the government’s justifications for a blanket ban on children under the age of 16 using social media are fears about the impact of social media algorithms on young Australians.
In August, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mentioned it as one of the major reasons that his government was pushing for the trial of technologies for a teen social media ban: “The algorithms push people towards more extremes and they reinforce views, so that some people think that if they’re logging on for a particular view, it will continue to put that forward as if that is the only view, and it will reinforce prejudices which are there,” he said. Communications Minister Michelle Rowland has echoed this view.
Both Albanese and Rowland have also cited a desire to get children off their phones as motivating the ban, specifically citing TikTok as one of the applications that will be restricted.
But the government’s proposed legislation, Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 [Provisions], will leave two of the most popular, algorithmically driven social media platforms accessible to Australians of all ages.
The loophole comes from the legislation’s focus on requiring platforms to take “reasonable steps” to ensure that only logged-in users are not under the age of 16: “A provider of such a platform must take reasonable steps to prevent children who have not reached a minimum age from having accounts,” says the amendment. Stopping children from having accounts on TikTok or YouTube Shorts will restrict their ability to post videos, comment, like or message other users.
However, neither TikTok nor YouTube Shorts require users to be logged in to watch videos on mobile devices, meaning that any person — of any age — with an iPhone or Android is still able to use the platforms to watch videos.
Additionally, experiments by Crikey suggest that logged-out TikTok and YouTube Shorts users are served videos based on their interactions with the platform, indicating that people using the platforms will still be impacted by the algorithmic recommendations.
When Crikey used a fresh iPhone, downloaded new installations of YouTube and TikTok, scrolled through non-logged-in feeds of videos recommended to the accounts, and only watched one type of video while skipping past unrelated content, both apps started to show more videos of the type Crikey was choosing to watch.
On YouTube Shorts, it took 12 videos before the first video of the children’s video game Roblox was shown. By the time the account was shown the fifth Roblox video, there was only one non-Roblox video before the next one, suggesting that the platform had registered the account’s interest in Roblox.
On TikTok, it took four videos before being shown the first clip of Donald Trump. By the sixth video of Trump, there was only one non-Trump video served before the seventh Trump video. For both apps, these recommendations continued even after the application was closed and reopened.
Queensland University of Technology digital media research centre director Professor Daniel Angus said that social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube can track non-logged-in users via IP addresses, cookies and other mechanisms. It’s not difficult for these companies to intuit a user’s preferences even without them using the like or comment functions that are limited to logged-in users, he said, instead using data like how long someone watched a video before they moved on.
“[Users are] going to get a mix of highly viral content but attuned towards the content that they’ve spent more time on,” he said.
Ironically, Angus noted, children might end up being shown more mature content on these platforms because the companies won’t know their age if they aren’t logged in.
“[At least] kids, when they’re logged in, the platforms know who they are and will be choosing content accordingly,” he said.
Have something to say about this article? Write to us at letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
