Meta starts removing under-16s from Instagram, Facebook in Australia

Meta has started deactivating the accounts of Australian users under 16 on Facebook and Instagram ahead of a new law taking effect on December 10, 2025.

Threads accounts are also affected because users need an Instagram account to access Threads.

This move impacts about 500,000 accounts, based on estimates from the eSafety commissioner.

Starting December 4, 2025, Meta will also block the creation of new accounts for under-16 users in Australia.

Meta notified affected users last month and is offering appeals for those wrongly flagged as under 16.

🔗 Source: The Guardian

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

How 500,000 accounts compares in Australia

The 500,000 underage accounts equal about 2.8% of Facebook’s 17.7 million ad-reachable users and 3.3% of Instagram’s 15.2 million in Australia 1.
Meta can likely handle the compliance workload. Its Australian ad reach should hold up. Facebook reaches 65.3% of the population. Instagram reaches 56.0% (share of the population reachable by ads) 1.
Australia’s eSafety commissioner (the national online safety regulator) has set guidance, with a plan for monitoring and enforcement. That gives platforms room to test age checks and improve them 2.

Penalty risk drives demand for age verification vendors

Fines can reach A$49.5 million for non-compliance, which pushes platforms to adopt third-party age assurance solutions (methods to estimate or verify a user’s age) 3.
Recent guidance and industry research back layered setups. Combine age estimation with behavioural signals from usage. Add document checks. Vendors that offer multiple methods gain an edge 4 2.
Identity firms offering biometric age estimation and document verification can pitch a ready-to-use package. It can meet Privacy Act (Australia’s federal privacy law) privacy rules while hitting accuracy and fairness standards 5 4.
TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube also sit in scope, so vendors have a wider pool of platform prospects 3.