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Meta closes 550,000 Australian children’s accounts, warns ban ‘not meeting objectives’
Australia’s ban on social media usage for under 16s, a world’s first, came into effect on December 10
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Meta Platforms said it has shut down almost 550,000 accounts in Australia to comply with the country’s landmark social media ban for children.
The social media giant has closed around 330,000 Instagram accounts, 173,000 Facebook accounts and almost 40,000 Threads accounts belonging to people believed to be under 16 years of age, it said in a blog post.
The law, which came into effect on December 10, mandates services such as ByteDance’s TikTok and Instagram keep under-16s off their platforms or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$33 million).
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It marks Australia as the world’s first democracy to undertake such a crackdown in response to growing concerns about social media’s harms.
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Australia’s under-16 social media ban due to come into effect
Australia’s under-16 social media ban due to come into effect
The company said it was committed to complying with the law.
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“That said, we call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivising all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans,” it said in a statement on Monday.
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