Australia’s teen social media ban has a gaming-sized loophole

Gaming platforms are simply social media in disguise

Roblox, Discord, and Twitch have nearly equivalent social options to the platforms being banned. Roblox affords direct messaging, good friend networks, group areas, user-generated content material sharing, and customisable profiles, precisely like Instagram or Facebook.

Discord offers servers (assume Facebook Groups), DMs, voice chat, and neighborhood areas organised by curiosity. Twitch combines stay chat, whispers (non-public messages) and communities that mirror Twitter’s dynamics.

The solely significant distinction is that these platforms wrap their social options round video games or streams as an alternative of picture feeds. But when youngsters are spending hours on Roblox they’re not simply enjoying, they’re socialising. Research exhibits over three-quarters of teenagers have interaction in on-line gaming with buddies, with many utilizing in-game chat and Discord as their major communication channels.

The platforms Australia exempted aren’t hypothetical dangers. Since 2018, at the very least 24 folks have been arrested within the US for abducting or sexually abusing youngsters groomed on Roblox. In 2023 alone, Roblox reported over 13,000 situations of kid exploitation to authorities. AFP Commissioner Krissy Barrett particularly warned that “crimefluencers” are utilizing Roblox to focus on weak women, whereas reporting by this masthead has revealed youngsters uncovered to little one sexual abuse materials and extremist content material on the platform.

Discord’s observe file can also be alarming. New Jersey’s Attorney General sued Discord in April 2025 for misleading enterprise practices that expose youngsters to predators. The infamous 764 organisation operated on Discord for years, coercing youngsters – some as younger as 14 – into self-harm and worse, regardless of FBI warnings.

Twitch, in the meantime, has been riddled with little one exploitation and grooming, however is “still being assessed” whereas Kick – its smaller competitor – has been included within the ban.

‘We can police the sharks’

Inman Grant says assessors have been utilizing a hypothetical check: “If the online gameplay is the significant or sole purpose, if that were taken away, would the kids still use that messaging functionality to chat? Probably not,” she advised journalists. But that logic sidesteps actuality.

She says Roblox stays exempt as a result of assessors determined youngsters wouldn’t use its chat options with out the video games – however that ignores the truth that predators are exploiting these precise options at present.

Inman Grant acknowledged the contradiction straight: “Exemption does not mean a platform is absolutely safe.” If security isn’t the standards, what are we truly defending youngsters from?

Rather than embody Roblox within the ban, Inman Grant says she extracted voluntary commitments: making under-16 accounts non-public by default and stopping adult-teen contact with out parental consent.

“We did initially threaten formal regulatory action and they said, no, we will work with you,” she defined on Wednesday.

It’s a compromise that undermines the ban’s total premise, nevertheless. If voluntary measures from Roblox are enough safety, why are necessary restrictions wanted for Instagram? If Instagram’s voluntary measures aren’t enough, why are Roblox’s?

Communications Minister Anika Wells repeatedly framed the ban as creating “cultural change” reasonably than complete safety. “We can’t control the ocean, we can police the sharks,” she stated, whereas concurrently exempting platforms the place sharks are documented to be swimming.

The minister is correct that the regulation ought to intention for a cultural shift. But tradition adjustments when guidelines make sense. Explaining to a 15-year-old why Instagram is banned however Discord isn’t – when each supply DMs, communities, and social connection – requires psychological gymnastics that Inman Grant and Wells have struggled to articulate.

Other jurisdictions have averted this mess. The UK’s Online Safety Act regulates any “user-to-user service” no matter claimed goal, whereas the EU makes use of risk-based regulation capturing platforms by precise hurt potential.

Instead, Australia has created laws the place Reddit – an nameless discussion board – is banned whereas Discord, internet hosting related communities with arguably much less moderation, escapes. Kick, the place a French streamer died on digital camera in August, makes the record. Twitch, its bigger competitor with related dangers, stays underneath evaluation.

At its core the record appears arbitrary at greatest, and wilfully ignorant in case you take into account how youngsters truly spend their time on-line.

Wells advised journalists on Wednesday that the record isn’t closing, with “room for movement” earlier than December 10. But the confusion over which platforms are banned and which get a free cross will do little to instil confidence in Australian households that the ban has been correctly thought via.

The federal authorities has had all yr to work these items out.

Wells insists “there’s not a place for predatory algorithms, harmful content and toxic popularity meters manipulating Australian children.” She’s proper. But these methods don’t instantly change into acceptable wrapped round a recreation as an alternative of a photograph grid.

With Nick Newling

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