In a landmark move, Meta has begun notifying thousands of young Australians to download their digital histories and delete their accounts from Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. This action precedes the enforcement of Australia’s pioneering social media ban on accounts of children under 16, set to take effect on December 10. The Australian government recently mandated that major platforms, including Meta’s trio, Snapchat, TikTok, X, and YouTube, implement measures to exclude users below the age of 16. Meta, headquartered in California, has emerged as the first tech giant to outline its compliance strategy. Starting December 4, suspected underage users will be denied access, with Meta issuing warnings via SMS and email. The company has advised young users to utilize the notice period to save their data and update contact details for future account recovery. Meta estimates that 350,000 Australians aged 13-15 are on Instagram, with an additional 150,000 on Facebook. For those mistakenly flagged, Meta offers age verification through Yoti, requiring government-issued IDs or a ‘video selfie.’ However, experts like Terry Flew of Sydney University caution that facial-recognition technology has a failure rate of at least 5%. The government has warned platforms against imposing blanket age verification, emphasizing that they already possess sufficient data to identify underage users. Non-compliance could result in fines up to AUD 50 million (USD 32 million). Meta’s Antigone Davis advocates for a standardized, privacy-preserving age verification system at the OS/app store level, arguing it would offer more comprehensive protection. Meanwhile, Dany Elachi of the Heaps Up Alliance, a parents’ group that lobbied for the ban, urges parents to help their children reallocate time previously spent on social media. Despite some reservations about the legislation’s implementation, Elachi supports the principle that children under 16 are better off engaging with the real world.
Meta alerts young Australians to download their data before a social media ban
