SYDNEY: Meta said Thursday it has taken down more than 750,000 accounts it suspected were held by Australians under 16 since a world-first ban on teen social media use took effect in December, as the company faces potential regulatory enforcement action.
The social media giant said it deactivated 462,000 suspect Instagram accounts and 294,000 suspect Facebook accounts from just before the ban went live in December through June. That represents an increase from 331,000 Instagram accounts and 173,000 Facebook accounts it said it had removed by January.
“Enforcement is ongoing, and these numbers will continue to grow,” Meta said in a statement.
The company, which owns both platforms, said it wants to comply with a law it and other tech companies have vocally opposed. The Australian internet regulator is considering enforcement lawsuits against platforms, including some owned by Meta, that it says have failed to take sufficient steps to comply with the law.
No other platforms have released compliance data matching Meta’s date range. But Australian government figures and multiple independent studies have shown more than eight in 10 under-16s were still on social media in the ban’s first three months.
The Australian government proposed the landmark law, which took effect Dec. 10, citing concerns about social media’s impact on the physical and mental health of children and young teens.
With other countries considering similar age restrictions, Australia has accused the platforms of intentionally setting the ban up to fail. Lawmakers have introduced legislation to double the maximum penalty for noncompliance to A$99 million ($69.75 million) and give the regulator greater document discovery powers.
Parliamentary hearing Friday
Representatives of Meta, TikTok, YouTube owner Google and Snap’s Snapchat are scheduled to give evidence Friday in a parliamentary inquiry about the changes, along with regulatory and government officials.
“We share the Australian Government’s goal of ensuring young people have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we are meeting our obligations under the law,” Meta said.
A 2025 Australian trial of age assurance technology found products on the market could effectively support a ban. Most large platforms, including Meta’s, have rolled out photo-based age estimation software, though they say they typically first subject users to age inference — assuming a person’s age based on online activity.
Meta said it was using artificial intelligence to analyze user profiles for “contextual clues that an account may belong to someone under 16, such as birthday celebrations or mentions of school grades” and to analyze reports about suspected underage accounts. The company added that it had removed the option for a person to make more attempts to set up an account if their previous account was deleted.
