Australia blocks over 4.7 million social media accounts after under-16 ban, PM says

Thu, 15 Jan, 2026 - 13:34

Josh Taylor

More than 4.7 million social media accounts held by Australians that online platforms deemed under 16 were deactivated, removed, or restricted in the first days after the ban came into effect in December, the prime minister has said.

After the social media ban came into effect on December 10, the eSafety commissioner sent questions to each of the platforms covered by the ban, asking how many accounts had been removed in order to comply with the law.

The 10 platforms the government announced were covered by the ban were Twitch, Kick, YouTube, Threads, Facebook, Instagram, Snap, X, TikTok, and Reddit.

The government cited commercial confidentiality in declining to break down the number of accounts affected on each platform. However, Meta has said it had deactivated almost 550,000 accounts across Facebook, Instagram and Threads.

Prime minister Anthony Albanese said preliminary analysis from eSafety suggested the platforms were preventing users from holding accounts. It’s encouraging that social media companies are making meaningful effort to comply with laws and keep kids off their platforms, he said.

“Change doesn’t happen overnight. But these early signs show it’s important we’ve acted to make this change.”

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The communications minister, Anika Wells, said eSafety would examine the data to see what it shows about the compliance of individual platforms.

“We’ve said from the beginning that we weren’t expecting perfection straight away — but early figures are showing this law is making a real, meaningful difference.”

The federal opposition, which campaigned for the policy before it was adopted by the government, last week said the ban implementation had “fallen flat”.

- The Guardian

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