Social media platforms are complying with the under 16s ban and deactivating millions of accounts. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
More than 4.7 million social media accounts of Australians under 16 years of age were deactivated, removed or restricted within days of the ban coming into effect on 10 December.
Tech companies are complying with the minimum age laws, albeit begrudgingly in some cases and the Federal Government is claiming it as a “huge success”.
The eSafety commissioner Julie Inman Grant wrote to the 10 platforms targeted by the ban to ask how many accounts had been removed from each.
The platforms were Facebook, X, Instagram, Snap, YouTube, Twitch, Kick, Threads, TikTok and Reddit.
Their replies have fed into a first tranche of information they must provide to eSafety as the new rules kick in.
The Commissioner said the data was an early indication that major platforms were taking meaningful actions to prevent under 16s from holding accounts.
“I am very pleased with these preliminary results,” Ms Inman Grant said.
“It is clear that eSafety’s regulatory guidance and engagement with platforms is already delivering significant outcomes.”
As Australia’s online safety regulator, eSafety will continue to closely monitor platforms to assess their compliance and ensure they are meeting their obligations.
Anthony Albanese is delighted with the early figures, repeating his position that the government introduced the laws to keep kids safe online.
“It’s encouraging that social media companies are making meaningful efforts to comply with laws and keep kids off their platforms,” the Prime Minister said.
“Change doesn’t happen overnight. But these early signs show it’s important we’ve acted to make this change.
“We want our kids to have a childhood and parents to know we have their backs.”
The government won’t give specific actions platforms have taken or provide a breakdown of the numbers of accounts removed from each.
It has cited commercial and legal confidentiality as the reasons behind the refusal, adding that the secrecy was necessary in order to maintain the integrity of eSafety’s investigations.
But tech giant Meta has already released the actions it has taken on the under 16s accounts for its platforms.
In a social media blog, Meta revealed it had removed 330,000 users from Instagram, 173,000 from Facebook and 39,000 from Threads by 11 December last year.
It began the purge a week before the 10 December deadline, but it is not happy about it.
“The premise of the law, which prevents under 16-year-olds from holding a social media account so they aren’t exposed to an ‘algorithmic experience’, is false,” Meta said in the blog post.
“Platforms that allow teens to still use them in a logged-out state still use algorithms to determine content the user may be interested in — albeit in a less personalised way that can be appropriately tailored to a person’s age.”
Communications Minister Anika Wells welcomed the figures but acknowledged there was more work to do in ensuring platforms were consistent in complying with the new law.
“More than 4.7 million under 16s social media accounts being deactivated because of our world-first social media minimum age law is a huge achievement,” she said.
“While it’s early, every account deactivated could mean one extra young person with more free time to build their community and identity offline.
“We know there’s more work to do and the eSafety Commissioner is looking closely at this data to determine what it shows in terms of individual platforms’ compliance.
“We’ve said from the beginning that we weren’t expecting perfection straight away – but early figures are showing this law is making a real, meaningful difference.”
Meanwhile, bookstores are reporting they have noticed more children, families and young teenagers in their stores buying books and puzzles since the social media ban came into effect.
QBD Books alone reported a 24 per cent uplift in foot traffic across its stores on the very day the ban began.
Since then, puzzles sales were up almost 30 per cent year on year over the Christmas period and children’s books grew by almost 18 per cent compared to the previous December.
QBD’s chief executive officer Nick Croydon said parents appeared to now be actively choosing experiences that build confidence, creativity and attention.
“While Christmas is traditionally a peak retail period, this points to a deeper behavioural shift,” he said.
“Books and puzzles [are] emerging as a preferred alternative to screen-based entertainment.”
Since the launch of the government’s education campaign on the social media minimum age, the eSafety website has recorded more than one million visits.
