For teenager Ilya Kirichenko, fleeing the war in Ukraine meant starting over in Australia
away from family and friends who were struggling to survive back home
With the social media ban, he says that distance is felt even further
I'd say when the social media ban came in, it got reasonably harder to speak to family and friends back in Ukraine
But then you got a little worried because everything, you don't know what's going on
everything, all the bombing and shooting and things like that, you don't know if they're OK
He now relies on other platforms to stay in touch and says for his community
less scrolling has brought an unexpected benefit. They used to go onto news and see what's going on
Maybe they shouldn't have seen what they've seen and maybe have traumatised them or some sort of thing
So I think the ban is protecting them from that sort of perspective
That being one of the aims of the ban, to protect children from harmful content as well as online bullying but
enforcement has proven difficult with many like teenager Victoria Long able to
get around it I know a lot of my friends bypassed it including my little brother who used my older brother ID to get passed And a lot of my friends just created a new account I just had to put my face in a circle and open and close my mouth to prove that I was a real person not a photo
And it waited for a minute. I got a few notifications saying you're back on. And then I got a screen that said you're back on Instagram, you're back on Snapchat
You passed the ban. The eSafety Commissioner's team told Al Jazeera they are seeing broad compliance
with 4.7 million accounts restricted last year, adding that platforms face fines of up to 33 million for non-compliance
But how it is monitored and how many accounts have bypassed restrictions remains unclear
and any ongoing investigations are being kept confidential. The eSafety Commission's research team is now tracking 4,000 children and their families
as part of a major evaluation plan. The survey will study their online habits and mental health with the results expected to guide global decisions
Other countries such as Denmark, Malaysia, Indonesia and the UK are now considering doing the same
An ogue generation making rules for the new digital world. Danielle Robertson, Al Jazeera, Sydney