Meta blocked nearly 550,000 accounts in first days of Australia’s under-16s social media ban | Social media ban

The company announced that Meta has disabled more than half a million accounts aimed at teenagers across Facebook, Instagram and Threads as a result of Australia’s social media ban on under-16s.

Just a month after the ban went into effect, Meta announced on Monday that 544,052 Meta accounts believed to have been held by users under the age of 16 were deactivated between December 4 and December 11, when the company began deactivating accounts.

Of this number, 330,639 are on Instagram, 173,497 are on Facebook and 39,916 are on Threads.

“Ongoing compliance with the law will be a multi-layered process that we will continue to improve, but we remain concerned about online age determination without an industry standard,” Meta said in a blog post published Monday.

The 10 platforms that the government announced were under the ban (Twitch, Kick, YouTube, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, X, TikTok and Reddit) all implemented age checks on December 10, 2025.

After the ban was imposed, the e-Security commission’s office sent questions to the platforms asking how many accounts were disabled, but e-Security has not yet published this data. eSafety has been approached for comment.

The federal government has said the ban won’t be perfect right away, and young people have enjoyed dodging the ban in responses to the prime minister’s social media accounts after it came into effect.

The Guardian Australia Twitch account, which was set up to test young people under the age of 16 after the ban came into force, was permanently banned by the platform last week, citing policy.

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The federal opposition, which campaigned before the policy was adopted by the government, said last week that enforcement of the ban had “failed”.

Shadow communications minister Melissa McIntosh said: “The majority of under-16 accounts were not deactivated, but others that were initially removed subsequently became active again.”

“New accounts are being created, and the age verification tools the government had assured Australians would be effective have proven ridiculously easy to bypass with a little make-up and good lighting.”

McIntosh said children who lost access moved to other platforms such as Yope and Lemon8, arguing that they were not included in the ban.

The ban requires all platforms to make their own assessment of whether the ban applies to them, and the government has stated that it will approach other platforms to ensure compliance if young people migrate to these platforms.

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Australia’s social media ban is being closely watched due to its success in other parts of the world. The UK Labor government is also facing pressure to introduce a similar ban; UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch announced over the weekend that her party would support a social media ban for under-16s.

On Monday, Meta said that while complying with the ban, it was calling on the Australian government to engage constructively with the industry to “find a better way forward” rather than a blanket ban on providing age-appropriate experiences online.