Feb 20 (Reuters) - Children in Australia are able to

easily bypass the minimum age limit imposed by social media

platforms ahead of a landmark ban by the government on access

for those under 16, a report by the country's online safety

regulator showed on Thursday.

ESafety's report combined results from a national survey on

social media usage by eight to 15-year olds, along with

responses from eight services including Alphabet's

YouTube, Meta's Facebook and Amazon's ( AMZN ) Twitch.

In November, Australia approved a social media ban for

children under 16, setting a benchmark for jurisdictions around

the world. The ban is set to take effect at the end of 2025.

Social media companies largely do not allow those under 13

to access their platforms.

The watchdog's report found 80% of Australian children aged

eight to 12 used social media in 2024, with YouTube, ByteDance's

TikTok, Meta's Instagram and Snap's Snapchat being the

most popular services.

YouTube, however, is the only service that allows under-13

usage when attached to a family account with parental

supervision. Still, none of the eight to 12-year olds who had

accounts reported shutdowns due to being underage.

Ninety five percent of teens under 16 used at least one of

the eight services surveyed, the report said.

The report found all services except Reddit ( RDDT )

required date of birth at its sign-up stage. However, they all

relied only on self-declaration with no other age assurance

tools.

"There is still significant work to be done by any social

media platforms relying on truthful self-declaration to

determine age with enforcement of the government's minimum age

legislation on the horizon," eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman

Grant said.

While TikTok, Twitch, Snapchat and YouTube used tools to

proactively detect users under 13, others didn't despite having

the technology available, the report said.

A vast majority of services had undertaken research to

improve their age assurance setups, while some had easy pathways

for users to report someone being under 13, the report added.