Australia’s Teen Account Takedowns
Meta said on Thursday it had removed more than 750,000 accounts it suspected were held by Australians under 16, and promised more action as regulators weigh intervention. The disclosure landed a day before company representatives were due to face a parliamentary inquiry. Australia introduced the world’s first national minimum age for social media accounts, and platforms now have to prove they are enforcing it.
Key Takeaways
- Meta deactivated 462,000 suspect Instagram accounts and 294,000 suspect Facebook accounts between December and June, up from 331,000 and 173,000 reported by January.
- Australia’s internet regulator is considering an enforcement lawsuit against platforms it says have not taken sufficient steps to comply.
- Government figures and independent studies show more than eight in 10 under-16s were still on social media during the ban’s first three months.
What Meta Disclosed
The counts cover the period from just before the ban went live in December through the end of June. Meta framed the figures as a work in progress rather than a finished job.
“Enforcement is ongoing, and these numbers will continue to grow,” the company said in a statement.
It added: “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.”
No other platform has published compliance data covering the same date range, which makes the numbers hard to place in context. Meta owns the largest set of affected services, so its disclosure is also the most exposed.
How the Detection Works
Meta said it uses 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 assess reports about suspected underage accounts. The company also said it removed the option for a person to keep attempting to set up an account after a previous one was deleted.
Most large platforms rolled out photo-based age estimation software, though they say they typically apply age inference first, guessing a user’s age from online behaviour before asking for anything stronger. A 2025 Australian trial of age assurance technology found products on the market could effectively support a ban.
Practice has been less tidy than the trial. Testers who opened accounts across major platforms after the law took effect found the first screening layer barely functioned at the sign-up screen, with almost no service asking for age proof.
The Regulator’s Next Move
Representatives of Meta, TikTok, YouTube owner Google and Snap’s Snapchat were scheduled to give evidence at a parliamentary inquiry on Friday, alongside regulatory and government officials. The internet regulator is separately weighing an enforcement lawsuit against platforms, including some Meta owns.
The government proposed the law on concerns about social media’s effect on the physical and mental health of children and young teens. It came into force on December 10. Australia has accused platforms of deliberately setting the ban up to fail, and has introduced legislation to double the maximum penalty for non-compliance to A$99 million ($69.75 million) and give the regulator greater document discovery powers. The Prime Minister has also pledged to harden the law so it survives legal challenge.
A Test Case Other Governments Are Reading
Australia is no longer alone. France has introduced a national ban for users under 15, and Spain, Malaysia and several other countries are weighing similar restrictions, with at least a dozen governments drafting minimum-age rules somewhere between 13 and 16. What those governments want from Australia is not a moral verdict. It is operational evidence: whether a platform can actually identify a 14-year-old at scale, and what it costs when it tries. Meta’s number is the first large data point either way, and the gap between 756,000 removals and the finding that more than eight in 10 under-16s remained online in the first three months is the whole argument in one line.
The compliance fight also arrives with other bills attached. Meta, Google and TikTok face a proposed levy of 2.25% of revenue for firms that do not comply with a reworked media law funding Australian news publishers. For a company of Meta’s size, none of this threatens the business. What it threatens is the precedent. If a mid-sized market can force behavioural change through age verification mandates and revenue-based penalties, larger regulators have a template, and the cost of running a global platform starts to vary country by country in ways the advertising model was never built to absorb.
Written by Vytautas Valinskas
