Meta provides update on its compliance with Australian social media ban

Social media giant Meta has issued a statement on its compliance with the Australian social media ban for under 16s, which was imposed last year.

Below is the statement from Meta in full.

"Since we began complying with Australia's social media ban in December 2025, we've removed access to more than 750,000 accounts across Facebook and Instagram in Australia that we understand to belong to people under 16.

We're sharing the steps we've taken to remove under 16 accounts, and the results of an education campaign we ran for parents."

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Meta's enforcement of social media ban to date

"As of 30 June 2026, we have removed access to more than 750,000 accounts on Facebook and Instagram in Australia that we assessed as belonging to people below the minimum age of 16.

That figure includes over 500,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts we removed in the lead-up to the law taking effect, which we reported in January, and the accounts we have continued to remove in the months since.

Enforcement is ongoing, and these numbers will continue to grow. We report our enforcement to the eSafety Commissioner and will continue to publish updates periodically in order to be transparent with the public."

The measures behind those numbers

"Identifying age online is not a single check. It is a continuing process, and the figures above reflect a series of improvements we have made throughout this year, building on the approach we set out in May and explained for families in June:

• AI-powered proactive detection. We use AI to analyse profiles — including posts, comments, bios and captions — for contextual clues that an account may belong to someone under 16, such as birthday celebrations or mentions of school grades.
• Simplified reporting. We have made it easier for parents and the community to report a suspected underage account, both in our apps and through our Help Centre for Facebook and Instagram.
• AI-driven review of reports. Reports of underage accounts are now supplemented by AI-driven review, delivering higher accuracy and faster resolutions than human review alone.
• Preventing re-registration. We have strengthened our systems to detect and prevent someone from creating a new account after their previous account was removed.
• App Store age rating. We updated our Apple App Store age rating to 16+ in Australia."

Helping Australian parents understand the change

"Enforcement is only part of the job. Between June and July we ran an education campaign across Facebook and Instagram in Australia that reached approximately 1.3 million people, pointing them to practical guidance on how we detect and remove under-16 accounts, what happens to a teen's account and memories, and how to check and correct a stated age.

We think this matters. A young person using social media without a parent or guardian knowing is harder to support, not easier, and keeping parents informed is part of making these protections work.

We share the Australian Government's goal 

"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. We will continue to invest in new ways to understand age more reliably while protecting privacy, and we will publish further updates as this work continues.

Our primary concern is that platforms are not taking a consistent approach to how they are removing teens. There should be a single reliable age signal delivered at the operating system or app store level. Age could be verified once, when a young person sets up their device or downloads an app, rather than repeatedly across the dozens of apps they use."