Meta says it removed over 750,000 Instagram and Facebook accounts to comply with Australia’s social media ban
Meta has said that it removed access to more than 750,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts in Australia that it believed belonged to users under the age of 16. This figure includes over 4,50,000 accounts removed from Instagram and over 2,90,000 accounts removed from Facebook.
“Enforcement is ongoing, and these numbers will continue to grow,” Meta said in a statement on Thursday, adding that it will continue to publish further updates.
Notably, the Australian government passed a law last year banning social media for teens under 16 owing to the medium’s impact on the physical and mental health of children.
Meta says that the figure it reported on Thursday also included over 5,00,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts that it had removed prior to the social media ban law coming into effect in December last year.
The social media behemoth said it used AI-powered detection to analyse profiles of users, including posts, comments, bios and captions, to get ‘contextual clues’ for identifying if the account belongs to children under 16.
The company also said that it has made it easier for parents and the community to report suspected underage accounts while also updating its App Store age rating to 16+ in Australia.
“We share the Australian Government’s goal of ensuring young people have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we are meeting our obligations under the law. We will continue to invest in new ways to understand age more reliably while protecting privacy, and we will publish further updates as this work continues,” Meta said in its blog.
Notably, a report by Australia’s online safety regulator, eSafety, had revealed that over 80% of children aged 10–15 were still using social media platforms almost three months after the ban came into effect. The commission had also found that kids were able to bypass the ban by changing their declared age on the social media platforms or prompting multiple age verification attempts.
“The primary reason children continued to hold age-restricted social media accounts at three months appeared to be ineffective implementation of age assurance measures,” the commission said in its report.
Australia government defends social media ban:
Australia’s Assistant Minister for Productivity, Andrew Leigh, had defended the social media ban earlier this month, stating that the ban had already begun to reshape the national debate.
As per Reuters, Leigh said that the ban had been “an important game changer in the conversation among parents.”
“We’ve had millions of accounts shut down,” he added.
