By Byron Kaye
Sydney (Reuters)-when the 13-year-old Jasmine Eachin the age control software that Australia could use could use to ban children and teenagers from social media, she was surprised that some products could identify the age of a person until the month, but she still doubts that it will work.
“People will always find a way to pass it,” said the Perth Schoolgirl who has tested five photo-based age estimates with around 30 other students in May. “They can cause their brother or sister to take a picture. There is nothing that you can really do about it.”
Everyin’s vision reflects one of the most important concerns of child protection proponents, technology companies and even the test organizers about the technology that Australia hopes that the first national social media ban in the world makes it possible under the age of 16: the software works, they say, but young people will find it a way.
From December, social media companies such as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and Tiktok will have to deal with a fine of no less than $ 49.5 million ($ 32.17 million) if they do not succeed in what the law “reasonable steps” calls younger users to protect their mental and physical health.
The platforms say that users must be at least 13 years old to register for an account.
How well the prohibition works could resound in some of the world’s largest companies and the governments they want to contain: already Great -Britain, France and Singapore are making efforts to keep children and teenagers of social media, while the US challenge Florida, the laws of freedom of expression by pushing for a ban.
Even the opponents of the law will probably keep a close eye on: X owner Elon Musk, who advised US President Donald Trump and is a vocal opponent of platform moderation and regulations, has criticized the measure and called the regulator who supervises a “censor commissioner”.
“Everyone looks at Australia,” said Colm Gannon, CEO of the International Center for Missing and exploited Children Australia, member of the stakeholder advisor group of the process. “Australia should really concentrate on robust technology, robust tests and ensure that the scope of the actual project is in accordance with the needs they are trying to tackle.”
The organizers of the test, which ended this month, say that it was designed to determine whether the software worked as promised, and that nearly 60 products were thrown.
But it also underlined the technical skills of the teenagers – testers were so fast to complete their assignments, organizers doubled the number of products they tested and halved session times as the project progressed.
“It was not our intention to take the software apart, pull out the guts and work out all the other way you could circumvent it,” said Andrew Hammond, general manager at Tech -contractor KJR, who led the test.
They will present an overview of the findings on 20 June and deliver a detailed report to the government at the end of next month.
That will inform the advice of the Esafety Commissioner of the government, which has cited risks by cyberbullying, harmful images of body image and misogynistic content by getting ahead of the legislation.
“We know that the limitations of social media age will not be the all kinds of solution for damage that young people experience online, but it is a step in the right direction to keep our children safer,” said a spokesperson for Communication of Communication Anika Wells.
What about the teenagers?
For some of the young Australians who participated, the process was a glimpse into a world of six months in the future, where, according to the law, they are no longer allowed to use a platform on which they started to trust daily communication.
“I use it a lot, but I can still live without,” said Canberra School -student Charlie Price, 14, who tasted four software options in a room with around 60 colleagues and had accurately guessed his age (someone in his test group was wrongly assessed on more than 20).
“I know people who will be really shocked and upset,” added Price, who uses Snapchat, Instagram and Messaging Platform Discord and is planning to collect telephone numbers of its online employees before December. Like everyone, he said he thought some teenagers would try to make the block around.
Emanuel Casa, 15, who was in the same group, said the test subjects tried to check the products for convenience and accuracy, but “nobody tried to challenge it, as if no one was trying to mislead it.”
Hammond said that software that revolved around a user who submitted a selfie – sometimes with different facial expressions – turned out to be the fastest and most accurate way to identify teenagers.
Products with credit card details turned out to be impractical, because few young teenagers had their own cards, while those who required a person to keep in different positions in hand gave it too broad an age for people near the 16 -Cutoff, he added.
No further tests are planned, but Hammond said that the government should decide on the level of software relationships that it was willing to accept. Most young testers had usually guessed their age correctly, but a pear from Elkin, the 13-year-old, was placed by one product at 42, she said.
“There is no measure at the moment what is ‘good’. Do they have to be 70% effective or 80% effective or 100% effective?” said Hammond. “So far, the government has not indicated that they will oblige a certain solution.”
Nathanael Edwards, director of the Radiant Life College, a secondary school in Queensland where 35 students participated together with a few parents and teachers, said his group tested a fundamental age for age gating where a person typed on his birthday.
Some did as asked, while others fake a birthday to age themselves – although not always successful.
“I think mathematics has captured a few children,” he said.
($ 1 = 1,5387 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Byron Kaye; adaptation by Kate Mayberry)
