Meta has removed access to more than 750,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts identified as belonging to Australians under 16.
Around 462,000 Instagram accounts and 294,000 Facebook accounts had lost access under the country’s social media minimum-age rules. Meta says enforcement is continuing, giving Australia the first large-scale look at what happens when a national age ban reaches hundreds of thousands of real accounts.
Australia can now begin measuring whether keeping younger teens off major social networks changes the habits and risks regulators wanted to reduce.
Platforms have to enforce the age limit
The country’s under-16 social media rules require covered services to take reasonable steps to stop younger users from creating or keeping accounts. eSafety says the restrictions are meant to protect young people from features that encourage more screen time and content that can harm their health and wellbeing.
Meta is complying, although it wants age checking handled differently. The company argues that app stores and operating systems should confirm age and share that information with apps instead of leaving every service to make its own checks. Questions around age verification have followed the Australian ban from the start.
Listed birthdays are only part of the check
On Facebook or Instagram, someone can enter an adult’s birthday even when they are younger. Meta says its age-checking technology can look across account activity for clues such as birthday references or school grades when a listed age appears questionable.
People wrongly flagged as under 16 can verify their age and regain access. Company safeguards also try to stop suspected underage users from simply opening replacement accounts.
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Teen safety could determine what comes next for Meta
Removing an account does not necessarily reduce a teen’s overall social media use. A 13- or 15-year-old who moves the same hours to another app may keep many of the same habits.
Parents and carers should watch for changes in overall screen time, compulsive checking, and sleep after Facebook or Instagram access disappears.
Concerns around compulsive social media use are also driving mounting US lawsuits against Meta. Plaintiffs allege Facebook and Instagram use addictive features and contribute to mental-health harms among children and teens. The company denies the allegations and points to its teen safety controls.
Britain plans to use the same model for its own under-16 restrictions in 2027, with the same Meta platforms among the services expected to be covered. Norway, on the other hand, is preparing legislation that would make tech companies verify younger users at login.
If similar laws spread, three-quarters of a million blocked accounts in one country could be the first indication of how much work the social media giant will have to repeat around the world.
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