Five social media giants 'flagged' for not stopping Aussies under 16

Major social media entities could face hefty penalties after eSafety reported "significant concerns" regarding the ban on under-16s introduced last year.

The online safety watchdog's first report on the minimum-age ban found there were "major gaps" in compliance from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube.

"While social media platforms have taken some initial action, I am concerned through our compliance monitoring that some may not be doing enough to comply with Australian law," eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said.

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The report found that while there had been some progress in the first three months of the ban, such as large-scale account removals, poor practices were in place at the aforementioned websites.

These practices included prompting children to attempt age assurance even though they had previously declared themselves underage, enabling under-16s to keep trying to achieve age verification, failing to provide "accessible or effective" ways to report age-restricted accounts, and insufficient measures to prevent under-16s from creating accounts.

Inman Grant said as a consequence, eSafety was moving into an "enforcement stance".

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"Any enforcement action requires sufficient evidence, which takes time to gather," she said.

"The evidence must establish the platform has not taken reasonable steps to prevent children aged under 16 from having an account.

"That means more than simply demonstrating some children do still have accounts. Rather, the evidence must show the platform has not implemented appropriate systems and processes."

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Platforms found to be non-compliant could face civil penalties of up to $49.5 million, while eSafety can also issue infringement notices and enforceable undertakings.

The platforms mentioned in the new report have been notified.

"Durable, generational change takes time – but these platforms have the capability to comply today and we certainly expect companies operating in Australia to comply with our safety laws," Inman Grant said.

"They can choose to do so or face escalating consequences, including profound reputational erosion with governments and consumers globally."

A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said the company was "committed to complying with Australia's social media ban and working constructively with eSafety and the government".

"We've also been clear that accurately determining age online is a challenge for the whole industry, particularly at the age‑16 boundary where the government's own Age Assurance Technology Trial noted 'natural error margins'," the spokesperson said.

"The most effective, privacy‑protective and consistent approach is to require robust age verification and parental approval at the app store and operating system level before a teen can download an app or create an account.

"That's how you protect young people not just on major platforms, but across the other more than two million apps available, many of which may have weaker safeguards.

"In the meantime, we'll keep investing in enforcement to detect and remove under‑16 accounts and support parents, while advocating for a system that's workable in practice and delivers better safety outcomes for young people."

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