Meta has removed more than 756,000 accounts suspected to belong to Australian users under 16, putting renewed focus on the effectiveness of age-verification technology and the challenges of enforcing Australia’s landmark social media restrictions.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has disclosed that it removed more than 756,000 accounts linked to suspected under-16 users in Australia between December 2025 and June 2026.
According to figures released by the company, approximately 462,000 accounts were removed from Instagram and 294,000 from Facebook as the platforms worked to comply with Australia’s new minimum-age requirements for social media.
The removals come as Australian authorities prepare to step up scrutiny of platforms and assess whether technology companies are doing enough to prevent under-16 users from maintaining accounts.
Australia’s landmark social media experiment
Australia introduced its under-16 social media restrictions in December 2025, making it one of the world’s most significant attempts to limit children’s access to major social platforms.
Under the rules, platforms are required to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians below the age of 16 from holding accounts on covered services. The responsibility largely falls on technology companies rather than children or their parents.
The policy has placed platforms in an unusual position. They are not simply moderating content or responding to reports. They are increasingly expected to determine whether a person is old enough to use their services in the first place.
For companies operating at the scale of billions of users, that presents a considerable technological and privacy challenge.
The age-verification challenge
Meta says it has been using artificial intelligence and signals from users’ profiles to identify accounts that may belong to people below the permitted age.
The company has also introduced tighter controls around account creation when its systems identify a user as potentially under 16.
However, identifying someone’s age online is far from straightforward.
Users can provide inaccurate information when creating accounts, while stronger verification methods can raise questions about privacy and the collection of sensitive information.
This leaves platforms balancing two competing requirements: preventing children from accessing restricted services while limiting the amount of personal data required to establish someone’s age.
Are account removals enough?
The large number of accounts removed by Meta does not necessarily indicate that the restrictions have completely prevented under-16 users from accessing social media.
Australian government research has suggested that more than 80% of under-16s remained online during the first three months of the restrictions, raising questions about how effectively the rules can be enforced across a rapidly changing digital environment.
Young users can potentially attempt to create new accounts, use another person’s account or find alternative ways around platform controls.
This makes enforcement an ongoing process rather than a one-time account-cleanup exercise.
Meta faces regulatory scrutiny
Meta has previously opposed Australia’s approach to restricting social media access based on age, but the company has said it will comply with the law.
The company’s compliance is now coming under greater scrutiny as Australia’s internet regulator considers potential enforcement against platforms that fail to meet their obligations.
Australia has also increased the potential financial consequences for platforms that do not comply, with penalties capable of reaching A$99 million.
Meta is not alone in facing questions. Other major platforms, including TikTok, Snapchat and Google, are also being examined as Australian lawmakers and regulators assess whether the new framework is working as intended.
A test case for governments worldwide
Australia’s experiment is being closely watched internationally.
Governments in several markets are considering stronger measures around children’s online safety, including age restrictions and age-assurance requirements.
The Australian experience highlights a fundamental problem for policymakers: creating a law that sets an age limit is relatively straightforward. Enforcing that limit across global digital platforms is considerably harder.
It also raises a broader question for the technology industry.
As governments increasingly demand that platforms verify the age of their users, how can companies protect children without turning age verification into another source of mass data collection?
For Meta, the removal of 756,000 accounts represents a significant enforcement effort. But for regulators, the more important measure may ultimately be whether under-16 users are actually staying off restricted platforms.
Australia’s social media experiment is therefore moving into a new phase — one where the focus is shifting from what the law says to how effectively technology can make that law work.
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