Meta warns Australian teens

Meta has already begun notifying hundreds of thousands of Australian teenagers: in the coming days, Instagram, Facebook, and Threads accounts belonging to users under 16 will be removed ahead of the official start of the ban, scheduled for December 10.

Starting December 4, the platform will begin shutting down profiles of users under 16 and blocking new registrations, in a race against time that affects at least 350,000 Instagram users and 150,000 on Facebook, CE Report quotes ANSA.

Notifications are arriving via email, SMS, and in-app alerts, with a clear message: “In compliance with Australian regulations, users have two weeks to copy or delete their data.”

Messenger is currently excluded from the ban. Meta is encouraging minors to save posts and conversations and to provide a contact so an account can be reactivated once they turn 16. It will begin removal with profiles it believes are most likely owned by users under 16, although it acknowledges that the system may make mistakes. A proportion of users may in fact be older but still affected by the ban.

To contest deactivation, users will have to undergo facial scanning through a video selfie or present a scan of an official document. The checks will be carried out by Yoti, a company specializing in AI-based age estimation. The company assures that data will not be stored.

However, independent studies and the government’s own test on the reliability of age-verification technologies have shown substantial error margins: on average, nearly one out of seven sixteen-year-olds risks a false negative. It is still unclear what recourse users will have if they are over 16 but mistakenly blocked and unable to provide a document.

Meta Australia’s head, Will Easton, acknowledged that the ban “poses real challenges,” while recalling the safety tools already implemented by the platform. Meta, he added, will continue to work with authorities to balance child protection, privacy, and the social utility of its applications.