Five social media giants face crackdown over under-16s ban

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube are under investigation for potential non-compliance with Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s, with the eSafety Commissioner flagging “major gaps” in how platforms are enforcing the law.

The watchdog’s first compliance report, released on Tuesday, found that while platforms had taken some initial steps – including deactivating more than 4.7 million accounts in the ban’s first two days – significant problems persist nearly four months after the laws took effect.

Among the concerns: platforms were allowing children who had already declared themselves under-age to repeatedly attempt age verification, failing to prevent new account creation, and lacking effective reporting mechanisms for under-age users.

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said the regulator was shifting to an “enforcement stance,” with platforms facing civil penalties of up to $49.5 million for non-compliance.

“While social media platforms have taken some initial action, I am concerned through our compliance monitoring that some may not be doing enough to comply with Australian law,” she said.

Inman Grant cautioned that enforcement required building a sufficient evidence base – not merely demonstrating that some children still had accounts, but proving platforms had failed to implement appropriate systems and processes.

Communications Minister Anika Wells said she expected eSafety to “throw the book” at any company that had systematically failed to meet its obligations.

“If these companies want to do business in Australia, they must obey Australian laws,” Wells said.

Wells said platforms were giving under-16s “limitless chances” to pass facial age estimation checks, including allowing children to return with an older sibling to scan on their behalf. “That is taking the mickey and not upholding either the purpose of the law or the actual law,” she said.

“Social media platforms are choosing to do the absolute bare minimum because they want these laws to fail. They want as many customers on their platform as possible. That maximises their profit.”

‘Social media platforms are choosing to do the absolute bare minimum because they want these laws to fail.’

The eSafety report also found that in some cases, platforms had not even asked existing users to verify their age – meaning the primary reason children remained on accounts was that their platform had never initiated the check.

The findings represent a marked shift in tone from January, when the government revealed more than 4.7 million accounts had been deactivated in the ban’s first two days and preliminary analysis suggested platforms had made “meaningful attempts” to comply.

That figure has since risen to 5 million deactivated or removed accounts in the first 100 days, but the compliance report makes clear that removal at scale has not translated into durable enforcement.

The eSafety report found no discernible drop in the number of cyberbullying and image-based abuse complaints from under-16s since the ban took effect – a metric that suggests the law has not yet reduced the harms it was designed to address.

Despite the compliance gaps, an eSafety survey of 900 parents found the proportion reporting their child had a social media account dropped from roughly half before the ban to about a third afterward. Wells also noted that in some cases, around 33 per cent of under-age users voluntarily deactivated their own accounts.

Inman Grant drew a parallel between the social media industry’s resistance and historical corporate pushback against regulation. “Any cultural change that pushes against the powerful interests and revenue potential of entrenched industry players – whether car manufacturers, big tobacco or big tech” – would face resistance, she said, but the regulator would “continue to push ahead”.

She also noted that the law was having a broader cultural effect, with parents reporting that the ban had empowered them to refuse their children’s requests for social media accounts – a shift the commissioner described as making parents “pivotal partners in this cultural reset.”

Wells drew her own analogy, comparing the early enforcement period to the introduction of compulsory seatbelt laws, arguing that widespread non-compliance in the first 100 days did not invalidate the policy. She said more than a dozen countries had moved to follow Australia’s lead since the ban took effect on December 10, including Indonesia, where she said 70 million children had recently spent their first weekend without social media.

The government last week also moved to broaden the scope of the ban, updating the definition of covered platforms to include those with infinite scroll, feedback features such as likes or upvotes, and time-limited elements like disappearing stories. Ten platforms currently fall under the ban, including Threads, X, Reddit, Kick and Twitch, with all set to be assessed against the updated criteria.

Platforms that have been flagged have been notified of specific issues and expectations for improvement. eSafety said it would withhold some details to protect the integrity of its investigations.

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