1 in 5 Under 18s in UK use fake age on social media, Gen Z spends 6 hours a day online
Ofcom has warned social media companies they will be punished if they fail to take significant extra steps to address the problem of children pretending to be adults online. A newly released survey, conducted by the UK media regulator, indicates 22% of eight to 17 year olds lie that they are 18 or over on social media apps. This is despite the Online Safety Act (OSA) requiring platforms to beef-up age verification, a responsibility that will come into force in 2025. Ofcom told the BBC its “alarming” findings showed tech firms had lots to do to meet that new legal standard. BBC
Australian senators have passed a world-first law that bans under 16s from having social media accounts. The legislation is set to come into force in November 2025. It includes some of the toughest social media controls in the world and will force platforms to take reasonable steps to ensure age-verification protections are in place. The law will make platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit and X liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars (£25m) if they don’t systemically stop children younger than 16 from holding accounts. Sky News
Young adults are spending a record six hours a day online as TikTok and Snapchat grow in popularity among Gen Z. People aged between 18 and 24 were online for an average of six hours and one minute per day in 2024, according to a study by media regulator Ofcom. That was a sharp increase on the four hours and 36 minutes that this age group spent online when the study was conducted last year. However, Ofcom said previous figures for YouTube use may have been understated as a result of a methodology change. Telegraph
Activision has said it is conducting “hourly sweeps” of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6‘s Ranked Play mode and leaderboards, as work to try and combat the game’s cheating problem continues. More than 19k bans have been slapped down by Activision’s anti-cheat squad Team Ricochet since Ranked Play went live in Black Ops 6 last week, the publisher revealed in a social media post. Meanwhile, in the background, Ricochet’s AI systems “continue to ramp up with code optimisations to accelerate enforcement,” the company wrote. “Thanks for your patience as our team continues to fight against cheaters.” Eurogamer
Elon Musk’s X is trying to block the transfer of the platform’s InfoWars accounts to the Onion after filing a legal objection stating that it owns users’ accounts. The social network has filed a “limited objection” to the sale of InfoWars, a media platform run by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, to the satirical news outlet the Onion. Although X said it did not oppose the sale as a “general matter”, it is arguing that its users do not own their accounts and cannot sell or transfer them without its permission. Guardian
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday, just months after the tech entrepreneur publicly praised President-elect Trump following the July 13 assassination attempt. Zuckerberg’s visit to Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, club was confirmed by Trump adviser Stephen Miller during an episode of “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News Channel. “Mark Zuckerberg has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of and a participant in this change that we’re seeing all around America..” Miller said to guest host Brian Kilmeade. Fox Business
