Snapchat will argue that it is a messaging service, rather than a social media platform, to avoid being included in the federal government‘s new social media ban for children under 16 years old.
Speaking to Sydney’s 2GB radio Thursday morning, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland noted that the government is still trying to work out how they will classify social media for the upcoming ban.
“Snapchat under the Online Safety Act, depending on how it’s defined, could fall within that definition [of a messaging service],” Rowland said, per the Sydney Morning Herald.
“We will go through, in a methodical way, having these criteria and the eSafety Commissioner applying what will be a very transparent process.
“Some of these platforms do present themselves in different ways. They will argue, for example, that they are messaging services and not social media services. We need to assess that objectively against a transparent set of criteria.”
Back in August, Snapchat did just that. The company’s head of platform safety, Jacqueline Beauchere claimed that the app shouldn’t fall in the same category as other social media sites.
“It’s not somewhere that you go to meet new people or to engage with strangers or post content that’s going to be seen by a huge audience,” she told The Guardian Australia.
Beauchere also questioned whether the decision to ban teenagers from social media should be up to the government, or left to families.
“The age might be 13, the age might be 16, but not every 13-year-old is the same, and not every 14, 15, 16-year-old is the same,” she said.
“They have a certain degree of a maturity level that’s associated with where they are in life.”
According to the Online Safety Act, the definition of a social media service is an electronic service which meets the following conditions:
- The sole or primary purpose of the service is to enable online social interaction between two or more users.
- Users are able to link to or interact with some or all of the other users.
- The service allows users to post content on the service.
If those definitions remain, it seems like Snapchat might have an uphill battle to gain an exemption.
Internal Snapchat data from August 2023 revealed that the app has more than eight million users in Australia, with 55 per cent of Snapchatters under 25 years of age. The data also revealed that Aussie Snapchatters open the app “an average of 40 times per day”, with 60 per cent interacting with Augmented Reality Lenses (the filters you find on the app).
As it stands, there’s still a long way to go until the ban becomes a reality. At the very least, we’ll be waiting a year before teens have to scramble for another way to entertain themselves. For everything we know about the ban so far, you can check out our explainer HERE.
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