Tech giant Meta has urged the Australian Government to rethink its world-first ban on social media use for children under the age of 16, even as the company reported blocking more than 5.44 lakh underage accounts under the new law, news agency AFP reported.
Australia introduced the legislation on December 10, 2025, requiring major social media platforms — including Meta, TikTok and YouTube — to prevent users under 16 from holding accounts. Companies that fail to take what the law describes as “reasonable steps” to enforce the ban face fines of up to Australian dollar 49.5 million (US dollar 33 million). Notably, children and parents are not punished for breaking the rules.
In a statement released on Monday, Meta said it was committed to complying with the legislation but raised concerns about its effectiveness and long-term impact. Billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s company said it had removed 3.31 lakh underage accounts from Instagram, 1.73 lakh from Facebook, and 40,000 from Threads in the week to December 11 alone.
“The company said it was committed to complying with the law,” Meta stated, while also urging the government to explore alternative approaches. That said, we call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivising all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans,” it said in statement.
Meta renewed its earlier call for app stores to play a greater role in enforcing age limits. It also proposed that age verification should happen at the app store level (Apple or Google) with parental consent, rather than on each individual app. This approach would help avoid what it described as a “whack-a-mole” problem, where teens simply move from one platform to another to bypass restrictions.
“This was the only way to avoid a ‘whack-a-mole’ race to stop teens migrating to new apps to avoid the ban,” the company said.
The ban is intended to protect children from cyber-bullying, sexual exploitation, harmful content and mental health issues linked to social media design. However, parents and experts have raised concerns that it could instead isolate young people from online communities and drive them towards less regulated platforms or the “darker corners of the internet”. Meta argued that early indications show the law may be falling short of its aims.
“Initial impacts of the legislation ‘suggest it is not meeting its objectives of increasing the safety and well-being of young Australians’,” Meta said.
Raising concerns over the ban, the National Institute of Health said, “the legislation does not equip young people with the skills to navigate online spaces safely and responsibly, which are essential in today’s digital landscape.”
While acknowledging the lack of an industry-wide standard for determining users’ ages online, Meta further added complying with the Australian law would require a “multilayered process”. Since the ban came into effect, the California-based company said it has helped found the OpenAge Initiative, a non-profit group that has launched age-verification tools called Age Keys, designed for use across participating platforms.
(With AFP inputs)
Meta urges Australia to reconsider under-16 social media ban
