Australia’s government plans to sue Meta, TikTok and three other major platforms for failing to comply with the country’s ban on social media accounts for users under 16, Communications Minister Anika Wells said in an interview with Bloomberg. Asked whether legal action against the five platforms was likely, Wells said, “Yes,” adding, “It’s not a decision for me to make, but I would expect it.”
The ban, the first of its kind globally, took effect in December 2025 and requires platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16 users from holding accounts. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has been investigating Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube since March over potential violations. In a compliance report, eSafety said it observed several poor practices across the platforms, including repeatedly allowing children to attempt age-assurance checks until they achieved a 16+ result, and insufficient measures to stop new under-16 accounts from being created. A July eSafety report found that most underage users were still able to keep or create accounts due to a lack of effective age controls.
The government has since raised the stakes. It doubled the maximum penalty for non-compliance to AU$109.2 million (~$76 million) and granted eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant expanded powers to demand documents from platforms and subpoena current or former employees.
The pressure has not been one-sided. According to Reuters, Meta announced in August that it had removed more than 756,000 accounts it suspected belonged to Australians under 16 since the ban took effect, up sharply from the 331,000 Instagram and 173,000 Facebook accounts it had reported by January. Meta said its enforcement now draws on AI systems that scan for “contextual clues that an account may belong to someone under 16, such as birthday celebrations or mentions of school grades,” alongside user reports, and that it has closed a loophole that let users recreate deleted accounts. Despite those efforts, government figures and independent studies cited by Reuters found more than eight in 10 under-16s were still on social media during the ban’s first three months.
Inman Grant has framed the shift to enforcement as a response to platform inaction rather than a failure of the law itself. “This reform is unwinding 20 years of entrenched social media practices,” she said, adding that platforms “have the capability to comply today” and face “escalating consequences, including profound reputational erosion with governments and consumers globally” if they do not. Wells struck the same note in an October 15 speech to the National Press Club: “The law isn’t failing; it’s the platforms that aren’t complying. We will not hesitate to hold tech companies accountable.”
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Australia’s government plans to sue Meta, TikTok and three other major platforms for failing to comply with the country’s ban on social media accounts for users under 16, Communications Minister Anika Wells said in an interview with Bloomberg. Asked whether legal action against the five platforms was likely, Wells said, “Yes,” adding, “It’s not a decision for me to make, but I would expect it.”
The ban, the first of its kind globally, took effect in December 2025 and requires platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16 users from holding accounts. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner has been investigating Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube since March over potential violations. In a compliance report, eSafety said it observed several poor practices across the platforms, including repeatedly allowing children to attempt age-assurance checks until they achieved a 16+ result, and insufficient measures to stop new under-16 accounts from being created. A July eSafety report found that most underage users were still able to keep or create accounts due to a lack of effective age controls.
The government has since raised the stakes. It doubled the maximum penalty for non-compliance to AU$109.2 million (~$76 million) and granted eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant expanded powers to demand documents from platforms and subpoena current or former employees.
The pressure has not been one-sided. According to Reuters, Meta announced in August that it had removed more than 756,000 accounts it suspected belonged to Australians under 16 since the ban took effect, up sharply from the 331,000 Instagram and 173,000 Facebook accounts it had reported by January. Meta said its enforcement now draws on AI systems that scan for “contextual clues that an account may belong to someone under 16, such as birthday celebrations or mentions of school grades,” alongside user reports, and that it has closed a loophole that let users recreate deleted accounts. Despite those efforts, government figures and independent studies cited by Reuters found more than eight in 10 under-16s were still on social media during the ban’s first three months.
Inman Grant has framed the shift to enforcement as a response to platform inaction rather than a failure of the law itself. “This reform is unwinding 20 years of entrenched social media practices,” she said, adding that platforms “have the capability to comply today” and face “escalating consequences, including profound reputational erosion with governments and consumers globally” if they do not. Wells struck the same note in an October 15 speech to the National Press Club: “The law isn’t failing; it’s the platforms that aren’t complying. We will not hesitate to hold tech companies accountable.”
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