Meta takes down 756,000 Australian teen accounts as ban enforcement looms

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said on Thursday it had taken down more than 750,000 accounts ​it suspected were ⁠held by Australians aged under 16 since a world-first ban on teen accounts, ‌and promised more action in the ‌face of possible regulatory intervention.

The company said it had deactivated 462,000 suspect Instagram accounts and 294,000 suspect Facebook accounts from just before the Australian social media ban went live in December to June, up from 331,000 Instagram accounts and ‌173,000 Facebook accounts it said it had removed by January.

The world's largest social media company has said it ⁠wants to comply with a law it and other platforms have vocally opposed, just as Australia's internet regulator considers an enforcement lawsuit against platforms, including some that Meta owns, that it says have failed to take sufficient steps to comply with the law.

No other platforms have released compliance data that matches the date range given by Meta, 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 came into force on December 10, on concerns about social media's impact on the physical and mental health of children and young teens. With other countries around the world considering similar age-restrictions, Australia has accused the platforms of intentionally setting ⁠the ban up to fail, and has introduced a law to double the maximum penalty for non-compliance to A$99 million ($69.75 million) and give the regulator greater document discovery powers.

Parliamentary hearing on Friday

Representatives of Meta, TikTok, YouTube owner Google and Snap's Snapchat ​are scheduled ‌to give evidence in a parliamentary inquiry about the changes on Friday, as are regulatory and government officials.

"Enforcement ‌is ongoing, and these numbers will continue to grow," Meta said in a statement.

"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," the company added.

A ‌2025 Australian trial ‌of age assurance technology found products on the market could ⁠effectively support a ban. Most large platforms, including Meta's, rolled out photo-based age estimation software, ‌although they say they typically first subject users to age inference, or assuming a person's age based on their online activity.

Meta said it was using AI to analyse 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 analyse 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.

Reuters