On November 20, the US technology company Meta announced that it would begin closing accounts on December 4, six days before a law banning social networking for children under 16 comes into force in Australia.
“Starting today we will notify Australian users aged 13 to 15 that they will lose access to Instagram, Threads and Facebook,” it said in a statement.
“We will start closing accounts on December 4 and complete the operation by December 10,” he added.
Australia has around 350,000 Instagram and 150,000 Facebook users aged between 13 and 15, according to data from the government, led by Labor leader Anthony Albanese.
“Users will find their accounts exactly as they left them when they turn 16,” Meta assured.
Under the law, passed by the Australian parliament in November 2024 and considered one of the most restrictive in the world, social networks active in the country, including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, are obliged to remove users under the age of 16. In case of violations, they risk fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (almost 28 million euros).
“We share the Australian Government’s goal of ensuring safe and age-appropriate online experiences, but taking kids away from their friends and communities is not the solution,” Meta said.
The Australian case is also being carefully followed in the rest of the world, with many countries considering the possibility of limiting children’s access to social networks.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced that he will present a similar measure in the coming weeks, while in recent months the Dutch government has advised parents to prevent children under 15 from accessing social networks such as TikTok and Snapchat.
However, some experts fear that the Australian law will have a primarily symbolic value, due to the difficulties of applying the ban from a technical point of view.
