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For teenager Ilya Kirichenko, fleeing the war
in Ukraine meant starting over in Australia

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away from family and friends who
were struggling to survive back home

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With the social media ban, he says
that distance is felt even further

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I'd say when the social media ban came in, it got reasonably
harder to speak to family and friends back in Ukraine

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But then you got a little worried because
everything, you don't know what's going on

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everything, all the bombing and shooting and
things like that, you don't know if they're OK

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He now relies on other platforms to stay
in touch and says for his community

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less scrolling has brought an unexpected benefit.
They used to go onto news and see what's going on

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Maybe they shouldn't have seen what they've seen and
maybe have traumatised them or some sort of thing

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So I think the ban is protecting
them from that sort of perspective

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That being one of the aims of the ban, to protect children
from harmful content as well as online bullying but

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enforcement has proven difficult with
many like teenager Victoria Long able to

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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

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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

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You passed the ban. The eSafety Commissioner's team
told Al Jazeera they are seeing broad compliance

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with 4.7 million accounts restricted last year, adding that
platforms face fines of up to 33 million for non-compliance

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But how it is monitored and how many accounts
have bypassed restrictions remains unclear

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and any ongoing investigations are being kept confidential. The eSafety
Commission's research team is now tracking 4,000 children and their families

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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

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Other countries such as Denmark, Malaysia, Indonesia
and the UK are now considering doing the same

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An ogue generation making rules for the new
digital world. Danielle Robertson, Al Jazeera, Sydney