Meta Disabled Over 750,000 Teen Accounts in Australia as AI Boosts Enforcement

Meta has released new data on its compliance with Australia's law banning under-16s from social media: since June 2025, the company has restricted access to Facebook and Instagram for more than 750,000 Australian accounts identified as belonging to users under 16. That's a sharp jump from the 550,000 figure reported in January.

Meta attributes the rise to improved detection systems: "We use AI to analyze profiles — posts, comments, bios, and captions — for contextual signals such as birthday mentions or references to a school grade," the company says. Meta has also made it easier for parents and community members to report suspected underage accounts, and has run an education campaign explaining how the system works on Facebook and Instagram.

However, according to Australia's eSafety Commission (the government's online safety regulator), most users under 16 can still access restricted apps. A report published earlier this month found that 81.5% of users under 16 continue to use restricted apps.

The Commission sees the platforms themselves as the main cause: more than half of children (50.2%) said the app had never asked them to verify their age, and 18.2% said the app had misjudged their age. As a result, the Commission has vowed to toughen penalties for non-compliant apps, though current requirements remain vague and open to varying interpretation.

Meta, for its part, continues to frame this as a systemic issue and is calling for a single unified standard: "Our main concern is that platforms aren't taking a consistent approach to keeping teens out. Age should be verified once — at the operating system or app store level — and passed to all apps as a trusted signal," the company says. The Commission, however, views this as part of an early rollout phase and stresses that it will take time to see the restrictions' real impact — in the meantime, there has been no notable improvement in harmful online usage among children.