Meta has started deactivating social media accounts of below 16-year-olds following the ban imposed recently by the Australian government.
On December 4, 2025, Meta announced the launch of deactivation process. By December 11, 544,062 accounts were taken down, including 330,639 on Instagram, 173,497 on Facebook and 39,916 on Threads, The Guardian reported.
The company announced in a blog post published on Monday that it is still worried about the determination of online age according to the industry standard, however, it is completely cooperating with the Australian law . All the 10 platforms that the ban was brought on namely,Twitch, Kick, Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Ticktok, Threads, X, Snap and Reddit have implemented the age checks.
After the ban was brought in, the office of the eSafety commissioner sent questions to the platforms asking how many accounts had been deactivated but eSafety has yet to release this data, The Guardian added.
The social media ban has had a major fallout as many of the accounts were not deactivated. On the other hand, many accounts that were initially deactivated got activated later on.
Further, the teens have moved on to other social media platforms which were not banned like Yope and Lemon8. The age verification tool was also easy to bypass, confirmed the communication minister Melissa McIntosh. The ban requires all the platforms to self assess the age before activating ones account to ensure that there is a stricter implementation of the ban.
Australia’s social media ban is being closely watched for its success in other parts of the world. The UK Labour government is facing pressure to bring in a similar ban, with the UK Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, stating at the weekend her party would back a ban on social media for under-16s.
Meta said it was complying with the ban. Even then, it called on the Australian government to engage constructively with industry to “find a better way forward” than impose a blanket ban for ensuring age-appropriate experiences online.