Ammon News - Meta has deactivated more than half a million accounts for teenagers across Facebook, Instagram and Threads as a result of Australia’s under-16s social media ban, the company has announced.

Just over one month since the ban came into effect, Meta announced on Monday that between 4 December, when the company began deactivating accounts, and 11 December, 544,052 accounts Meta believed to be held by users under 16 were deactivated.

That included 330,639 on Instagram, 173,497 on Facebook and 39,916 on Threads.

“Ongoing compliance with the law will be a multi-layered process that we will continue to refine, though our concerns about determining age online without an industry standard remain,” Meta said in a blog post published on Monday.

The 10 platforms the government announced were covered by the ban – Twitch, Kick, YouTube, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, X, TikTok and Reddit – had all implemented age checks on 10 December 2025.

The Guardian