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Social media companies revoke access to about 4.7 million accounts deemed to belong to children Australia Officials said that because the country prohibits those under 16 from using these platforms.
“We’re taking a hard look at everyone who says it can’t be done, including some of the world’s most powerful and richest companies and their backers,” Communications Minister Anika Wells told reporters on Friday. “Now Australian parents can have confidence that their children can regain their childhood.”
The data, reported by 10 social media platforms to the Australian government, shows for the first time the scale of the landmark ban since it was enacted in December amid concerns about the impact of harmful online environments on young people. The law has sparked heated debate in Australia about technology use, privacy, child safety and mental health, and prompted other countries to consider similar measures.
Officials say the numbers are encouraging
According to Australian law, Facebook, InstagramKick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X, YouTube and Twitch face fines of up to AU$49.5 million (approximately US$33.2 million) if they fail to take reasonable steps to delete the accounts of Australian children under the age of 16. Messaging services such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are exempt from penalties.
To verify age, platforms can ask for a copy of an identification document, use a third party to apply age estimation technology to the account holder’s face, or make inferences based on pre-existing data (such as how long the account has been held).
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said there were about 2.5 million Australians aged between eight and 15, and past estimates showed 84 per cent of children aged eight to 12 had a social media account. It’s unclear how many accounts are on the 10 platforms, but Inman Grant said the figure of 4.7 million accounts that were “deactivated or restricted” was encouraging.
“We are stopping predatory social media companies from reaching our children,” Inman Grant said.
The commissioner said the 10 largest companies covered by the ban had complied with it and had reported removal data to Australian regulators on time. Social media companies are expected to shift their efforts from enforcing bans to preventing children from creating new accounts or otherwise circumventing bans, she added.
Meta deletes 550,000 accounts
Australian officials did not break down the data by platform. But Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, said this week that by the day after the ban took effect, it had removed nearly 550,000 accounts believed to belong to users under 16.
In a blog post revealing the data, Meta criticized the ban and said smaller platforms to which it does not apply may not prioritize security. The company also noted that browsing platforms will still algorithmically present content to children — a concern that led to the ban.
The law was widely welcomed by parents and child safety activists. There is pushback from online privacy advocates and some groups representing teenagers, who cite the support that vulnerable young people or those geographically isolated in Australia’s vast rural areas find in online spaces.
Some said they managed to trick age-assessment technology or get around the ban with the help of parents or older siblings.
Other countries may follow
Since Australia began discussing the measures in 2024, other countries have considered following suit. Among them is the Danish government, which said in November it planned to impose a social media ban on children under 15.
“Despite some skepticism, the fact that it is working and is being replicated around the world is a source of pride for Australia,” the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Friday.
Opposition lawmakers say young people have easily bypassed the ban or are turning to other apps that receive less scrutiny than the largest platforms. Inman Grant said Friday that her office has seen data showing a surge in downloads of alternative apps after the ban, but not a surge in usage.
“We don’t have a real long-term trend that we can speak of yet, but we are participating in it,” she said.
Meanwhile, she said the regulator she leads plans to introduce “world-leading restrictions on AI companions and chatbots” in March. She gave no further details.