Overview
- Preliminary data from the eSafety Commissioner shows about 4.7 million accounts held by under‑16s were deactivated, removed or restricted after the Dec. 10 law took effect.
- The Online Safety Amendment Act requires platforms to take reasonable steps to block under‑16 accounts or face fines of up to A$49.5 million, with parents and children not liable.
- Meta reported removing roughly 550,000 underage accounts across Instagram, Facebook and Threads, and companies are using methods such as facial age estimation, ID checks and age inference, with at least one non‑ID option mandated.
- Reddit says it is complying but is suing to overturn the ban, and the government says it will defend the law.
- Regulators report some underage accounts persist, are monitoring migration to smaller apps with no sustained usage spike, plan multi‑year mental‑health research, and flagged upcoming AI companion and chatbot restrictions in March.