By Zac de Silva in Canberra

Three more AI “nudifying” platforms have been taken down in Australia as the federal government flags plans to strengthen its world-first social media age restrictions.

The nation’s online watchdog said the services, which use existing images to generate nude pictures of real people, had withdrawn from Australia under the threat of legal action.

Such platforms would be blurred online until they introduced age verification in a bid to prevent children accessing them, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.

“Age assurance is by no means a silver bullet, but it is a critical safeguard that will help stop children accessing these services and reduce the creation of deeply harmful and non-consensual material,” she said.

Seven “nufidying” apps – which the government plans to eventually outlaw – have now withdrawn access in Australia or introduced age verification.

On top of its crackdown on deepfake AI platforms, Labor is plans further changes to strengthen its social media age limit for under 16s to head off legal challenges and give eSafety more powers.

Government sources confirmed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese plans to announce a beefing up of the ban within weeks.

“This is leading the world, we should be proud of this,” Mr Albanese told Nine’s Today Show on Friday.

“What we’re looking at doing is any way that we can further strengthen the laws … if there are legal challenges.”

Ms Inman Grant has previously called for stronger powers and raised concerns about the “thin scaffolding” of the ban.

More work was needed to enforce the ban including stricter age-verification measures and a greater preparedness from the regulator to take action, Sydney University professor of digital communication and culture Terry Flew said.

“This is at both ends of the spectrum. It’s partly about young people and their parents actively avoiding age-assurance measures and it’s partly about companies not taking age-assurance seriously,” he told AAP.

Big social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit and X were possibly “running dead” on the issue in the hope the High Court strikes down the government’s laws, Professor Flew said.

A government-issued digital ID would be the most effective way of verifying a person’s age, he added.

The social media ban took effect in December, aiming to remove children aged below 16 from online platforms, along with restricting their access to high-impact content like pornography.

The policy has been highly controversial among tech companies, with two separate court challenges lodged by Reddit and a pair of teenagers backed by the Digital Freedom Project.

While the government says millions of social media accounts have been deleted, recent research has shown the ban can be circumvented with relative ease.

As many as 85 per cent of children under 16 reported using social media after the ban took effect, according to a study by researchers at the University of Newcastle published on Wednesday.

There was little evidence young people were using social media less than they were before the ban, the report found.

Mr Albanese conceded the ban would not block every child from social media but said that was no reason to shy away.

“Friday night, there may well be somewhere in Australia, someone who’s under 18 (getting) access to alcohol in a pub,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean we don’t have those rules and laws in place.”

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