Meta says it blocked more than 544,000 accounts across its platforms to comply with Australia’s ban on social media for kids under 16.
Meta started blocking access to affected accounts on Facebook, Instagram and Threads last Dec. 4.
By Dec. 11, the day after the ban went into effect, Meta had removed access to 544,052 accounts that it believed belonged to “people we understand to be under 16 years-old.”
By platform, Meta said it removed access to 330,639 accounts on Instagram, 173,497 on Facebook and 39,916 on Threads.
Meta said in the Sunday blog post that it is committed to staying compliant with the Australian law, the first of its kind worldwide. But it also contended that the blanket ban did not work as intended because teens could find new apps that were not covered by the law, citing U.S. research that found teens use 40 apps weekly.
Instead, Meta argued, Australia should focus on verifying the age of people who use app stores, as opposed to people who use the apps themselves.
“We believe legislation should require app stores to verify age and obtain parental approval before their teens under 16 can download an app. This is the only way to guarantee consistent, industry-wide protections for young people … and to avoid the whack-a-mole effect of catching up with new apps that teens will migrate to in order to circumvent the social media ban law,” Meta said.
The company also said that it has launched use of mandatory “teen accounts” on Instagram and begun working with others to create new and improved forms of age verification to safeguard younger users.
“We call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivizing all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans,” Meta said.
A spokesperson for the Labor Party government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that it “is holding social media companies accountable for the harm they cause to young Australians” and that Meta and others “collect a huge amount of data” on their users for commercial purposes. They can and must use that information to comply with Australian law and ensure people under 16 are not on their platforms.
