As talk of social media platform bans mount for various reasons, social media marketers may be wondering where they—or their audiences—will soon be able to post or not post. Here’s the latest.
What’s going on with the US TikTok ban? It’s been a couple of months since President Trump ordered the sale of TikTok’s US operations via executive order to a group of investors that includes Oracle, Silver Lake private equity, and Abu Dhabi tech investment company MGX. Since then, talk of progress has been largely nonexistent, with no updates on approvals from US or Chinese government officials to seal the brokered deal. The fourth deadline for the app to be sold to US partners or be banned is set to expire on Dec. 16.
Many US lawmakers who led the charge to ban TikTok have essentially stood down amid Trump’s multiple enforcement delays, and some of them seem to have no idea where the deal currently stands, The Verge recently reported. As the one-year anniversary of the original divest-or-ban deadline approaches, it seems TikTok will still continue to operate as usual in the US.
Meanwhile, in Australia: Gen Alpha social media marketing may soon be a thing of the past. Beginning December 10, people younger than 16 in Australia are poised to lose access to social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, YouTube, and Australian livestreaming platform Kick. Some platforms, like Discord, Roblox, Messenger, Lemon8, and WhatsApp, will remain accessible to the below-16 crowd. Of those included in the ban, platforms that do not take action to remove underage accounts could be subject to multimillion-dollar fines. Meta has said it will begin deactivating and blocking the creation of under-16 accounts on December 4.
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According to Reuters, social platforms will likely aim to identify account holders’ ages using marketing software that analyzes likes and selfies. Users that are deemed to not meet the age requirement are expected to receive the option to download their data, freeze their profiles, or delete their accounts altogether.
If the ban indeed goes through, Australia would be the first country to institute such a measure, but other countries seem poised to follow suit as more details (and lawsuits) emerge about the harms of social media on young users’ mental health. Denmark and Malaysia have plans to institute bans next year, and similar proposals have emerged in countries like France, Norway, and the entire European Union in recent months.
In the US, momentum is building for national age restrictions on social media, and 25 states have either enacted or proposed some form of age restrictions at the state level.
At the same time, the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill that purports to mitigate the harms of social media for minors, is being packaged for reintroduction in Congress, despite concerns about its implementation and the possibility of censorship.
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