“When the age assurance technology trial released its final report before Australia’s under-16s social media ban came into effect last year, its first finding was: age assurance can be done privately, efficiently and effectively.”

“Four months since the ban came into effect, we can say that was – to paraphrase Yes Minister – a courageous statement.”

“Many of the complaints to eSafety were from parents who had reported their teen’s account to the platform, only for the platform to take no action. The report noted Guardian Australia’s reporting had confirmed this.”

“We can now see, by eSafety’s own reporting, 'facial age estimation is known to have higher error rates for children near the age threshold of 16 years', as many had warned. But age assurance companies had talked down that possibility when asked last year.”

“The ban has also had unintended side effects for the government. On the day new research found vaping could lead to cancer, Guardian Australia exclusively obtained documents from the health department that showed the social media portion of its anti-vaping ad campaign targeting teens had to be diverted to gaming platforms and audio platforms such as Spotify in order to reach 14 and 15-year-olds.”

“Just 10% of the ad spend was diverted to gaming to reach this demographic – despite many of those still using social media.”

“The Albanese government has been keen to sell its early success on the social media ban to the world – with more than 5m accounts now deactivated – but these early problems should give other countries pause for thought before following.”