Can Australia Trust a CCP-Linked App to Comply With Its Social Media Ban?

In this photo illustration, the TikTok logo is displayed on a phone screen with the Australian flag displayed in the background in Melbourne, Australia on Nov. 30, 2024. Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images

A defence expert says it is still unclear how Australian authorities will be able to force the CCP-linked social media app TikTok to comply with a ban on social media use for under-16s.

The law, passed in late November, compels social media companies, including Meta (owner of Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, X, and Snapchat, to stop young Australians from using their platforms in a year’s time.

The ban threatens the long-term viability of some apps, particularly TikTok, which has effectively captured the post-1990s and 2000s demographic.

Yet the exact enforcement mechanism for the ban is being left up to Big Tech companies to work out themselves, a situation that Michael Shoebridge, director at Strategic Analysis Australia, says is “absurd.”

“I think the social media ban will be very difficult for TikTok, more difficult than for some of the other big social media companies, because the Australian government’s model—which we haven’t seen too much of—seems to leave compliance up to the companies themselves,” he told The Epoch Times.

This would effectively mean relying on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to regulate its own app for the benefit of young Australians.

“So how the Australian government will be able to satisfy itself that TikTok is doing things that are in Australia’s national interest, and not in the Chinese regime’s interest, is mystifying,” Shoebridge said.

“I think it just adds pressure on Tiktok and the Australian government to face the fundamental problem of the Chinese Communist Party’s reach into that platform and its data.”

The defence expert summed up the situation as a “collision between two governments, with TikTok in the middle.”

TikTok’s Impact on Youths

Earlier this month, the Standing Committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China Relationship found promoting TikTok to teenagers was part of the CCP’s “no rules” approach to global influence.

TikTok itself has also been heavily criticised for collecting large volumes of data from users, including accessing phone cameras, microphones, contacts, and location using GPS.

In 2022, a study conducted by the U.S.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate, set up fake accounts posing as 13-year-olds in western nations, including Australia.

For the study, they also set up two separate accounts with one fake user appearing more “vulnerable,” compared to the other interacting with regular content.

TikTok’s algorithm was three times more likely to show the “vulnerable” accounts content about eating disorders, suicide, and self-harm.

Just this month, the Albanian government announced it would ban TikTok for a year after a teenager was killed after an argument with a fellow classmate on the app.