Australian content creators feel sting of social media curbs

SYDNEY — Australian content creators are reporting drops in followers and views a day after the country imposed a sweeping teen social media ban, posing risks for incomes and forcing rethinks of content strategies.

Josh Partington, 29, typically gets 100,000 views on his TikTok, where he makes comedy skits about everyday life in Australia. But his first video since the ban started on Wednesday has barely reached one-tenth of that.

“Both my TikTok and Instagram videos from yesterday underperformed pretty noticeably,” he said. “They both landed under 10,000 views which is very unusual for me.”

Australia has ordered 10 of the biggest platforms including TikTok, Meta’s Instagram and Alphabet’s YouTube to bar around one million users under 16 or face hefty fines.

As many teenagers grapple with a new reality without social media, content creators who spent years cultivating their followings are also feeling the effects of losing their most active audience members.

Follower counts primarily on Instagram have dropped, creators told Reuters, while engagement patterns — likes, comments and views — have also changed.

If the trend continues, that could spell trouble in an industry where metrics are a chief determinant of revenue from brand deals and advertisers.

Others have also created accounts on alternative platforms that are not yet covered by the ban, or set up mailing lists to keep in touch with their young followers.

Mr. Partington, who has a combined 100,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, said the ban wiped about 1,500 Instagram followers. If TikTok went the same way, “it is definitely a bit scary,” he said.

“A lot of my audience under 16 is incredibly engaged and they’re a big part of why my videos land the way they do.”

He said losing followers could impact the work he does with brands and his income, but he was not panicking yet. “While it’s not ideal, I’m confident I can adjust and still keep building my platforms.”

Comedian Mitch Dale, 30, said that while most of his 200,000 followers were adults, losing his younger fans would reduce his initial engagement levels and make him rethink his content posting schedules.

“I’ve always aimed to post outside of school hours on TikTok, 3:30 p.m. in the afternoon when kids have been getting home and getting on their phones. So that might be something that I’ll reconsider,” he said.

Indie musician Harry Kirby, 18, has more than 180,000 social media followers. He said a “good part” of them were under 16 and he had lost 1,000 on Instagram so far.

“They just vanished,” he said. “It genuinely sucks to lose direct connection with any fans.”

The government has said some 200,000 accounts have been deactivated on TikTok alone since the ban went live.

The internet regulator will be asking all affected platforms to report how many under-16 accounts were still active, Communications Minister Anika Wells said on Thursday.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Thursday took aim at young people parading themselves on social media a day after a world-first ban on under-16s went live, saying the rollout was always going to be bumpy but would ultimately save lives.

A day after the law took effect with bipartisan support from the major political parties and backing by some three-quarters of Australian parents, the country’s social media feeds were flooded with comments from people claim-ing to be under 16, including one on the prime minister’s TikTok account saying “I’m still here, wait until I can vote.”

Under the law, 10 of the biggest platforms including TikTok, Instagram and YouTube must bar underage users or face a fine of up to A$49.5 million ($33 million). The government has said it would take some time for the platforms to set up processes to do this.

“This is the law, this isn’t something that can be flouted,” Mr. Albanese said on News Corp’s Sky News.

“Some young people who haven’t yet been pulled off social media are sending out notices bragging about it. That just tells the platforms who they are, and so it will be taken down.”

Governments around the world have said they would monitor the Australian rollout as they weigh whether to do something similar. US Republican Senator Josh Hawley endorsed the ban as it took effect, Nine newspapers re-ported, while France, Denmark, Malaysia and others have already said they plan to emulate the Australian model.

The Australian internet regulator, the eSafety Commissioner, would ask all affected platforms to report numbers of under-16 accounts on the days before and after the ban went live on Wednesday, Ms. Wells said.

Meta repeated its opposition to the law, saying some experts, advocates and parent groups were concerned it was driving teenagers to less regulated parts of the internet and that there was “little interest in compliance.”

“This will result in inconsistent application of the law and ultimately does not make young people safer,” a spokesperson said.

TikTok and Snap, owner of Snapchat, declined to comment on the implementation, while YouTube, X, Amazon’s Twitch, Reddit and Australian-owned Kick — all of which are covered by the ban — were not immediately available for comment.

HEATED GLOBAL REACTIONS
The ban generated impassioned reactions across the spectrum of global commentators — including from US psychologist Jonathan Haidt, whose book The Anxious Generation featured prominently in the Australian debate.

“Bravo Australia,” he wrote on X.

The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF warned in a statement the ban might encourage children to visit less regulated parts of the internet and could not work alone.

“Laws introducing age restrictions are not an alternative to companies improving platform design and content moderation,” the statement said.

Mr. Albanese, visiting a school in Canberra, said the ban would lead to better educational outcomes and behavior” since “you get better social interaction when students aren’t subject to looking at their devices constantly.”

Australian searches for virtual private networks (VPNs), which can mask an internet user’s location, surged to the highest level in about 10 years in the week before the legislation took effect, according to publicly available Google data.

Free VPN provider Windscribe told Reuters it experienced a 400% increase in installations in Australia in the 24 hours after the ban went live. Another free VPN provider, hide.me, said it had a 65% spike in visits from Australia in the days before the ban kicked in, although that had not translated to a rising number of downloads.

All 10 platforms named by the ban opposed it before saying they would comply. As the legislation came into force, some platforms not covered by the ban rose to the top of app download charts, prompting the Australian gov-ernment to say the platform list was “dynamic.”

One app, Lemon8, which is owned by TikTok parent ByteDance, introduced an age minimum of 16. Photo-sharing app Yope told Reuters it had experienced “very fast growth” to about 100,000 Australian users. About half of its users were over 16.

The company told Reuters it had told the Australian internet regulator overseeing the ban that it considered itself a private messaging service, not social media. — Reuters