New Survey Shows Despite Many Online Safety Laws, Children Under 13 are Still Able to Use Social Media Accounts

The eSafety Commission in Australia conducted a study which found that most of the kids under 13 often bypass social media age restrictions to use platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat. The study found that most of these kids use social media through their caregivers or parents’ accounts while 5% of them also use accounts of their friends or siblings. More than one-third of under 13 also said that they have their own social media accounts, while there were also kids under 13 who could access social media without having an account.

Even though there are many social media platforms that do not enable kids under 13 to make their own accounts, only 13% of the kids under 13 got their accounts deleted because they weren't of appropriate age. The study surveyed 1504 children between the ages of 8 to 15 to find out social media use among them, especially when the government of Australia is aiming for an under 16 social media ban by the end of 2025. The Online Safety Amendment bill has already been passed and 77% of the public is in favor of it.

Another report showed that 95% of the children under 16 have already used at least one social media platform, with 80% of these kids being between the ages of 8 and 12. The accounts focused in the report were YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitch and Discord. When these platforms were asked about their age restriction policies, it was found that all platforms except Reddit ask for user age when a new account is being made. But there are no age reassurance tools on these platforms that can verify that the age being entered is true.

Only YouTube is the platform that allows a child under 13 to use the platform under their parents account. This shows that many children are able to access social media just because there is no tool that can access their ages and this is a matter of deep concern. But some tools like Twitch, TikTok and Snapchat use proactive language analysis technology to detect under-13 users. TikTok also uses AI for facial age estimation while YouTube uses classifiers on channels. If the platforms like Reddit, Twitch, Discord and Snapchat detect that a user is under-13, they immediately terminate the account while TikTok does a manual review of the user account to find out what could be the users’ age. Meta platforms also use some tricks to stop someone under 13 to make an account and also use facial age estimation AI called Yoti when there's need.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World