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Nearly 5 Million Accounts Removed Under Australia's New Social Media Ban (nytimes.com) 72

Posted by BeauHD from the good-riddance dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: Nearly five million social media accounts belonging to Australian teenagers have been deactivated or removed, a month after a landmark law barring those younger than 16 from using the services took effect, the government said on Thursday. The announcement was the first reported metric reflecting the rollout of the law, which is being closely watched by several other countries weighing whether the regulation can be a blueprint for protecting children from the harms of social media, or a cautionary tale highlighting the challenges of such attempts.

The law required 10 social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Reddit, to prevent users under 16 from accessing their services. Under the law, which came into force in December, failure by the companies to take "reasonable steps" to remove underage users could lead to fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars, about $33 million. [...] The number of removed accounts offered only a limited picture of the ban's impact. Many teenagers have said in the weeks since the law took effect that they were able to get around the ban by lying about their age, or that they could easily bypass verification systems.

The regulator tasked with enforcing and tracking the law, the eSafety Commissioner, did not release a detailed breakdown beyond announcing that the companies had "removed access" to about 4.7 million accounts belonging to children under 16. Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, said this week that it had removed almost 550,000 accounts of users younger than 16 before the ban came into effect. "Change doesn't happen overnight," said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. "But these early signs show it's important we've acted to make this change."
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Nearly 5 Million Accounts Removed Under Australia's New Social Media Ban More

Nearly 5 Million Accounts Removed Under Australia's New Social Media Ban

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  • Australia has 28 million inhabitants (Score:4, Informative)

    by toutankh ( 1544253 ) on Saturday January 17, 2026 @09:34AM (#65931174)

    5 million accounts is significant in a country of 28 Million inhabitants. There aren't that many social media networks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ls671 ( 1122017 )

      I guess Australian teenagers haven't learned to lie about their age yet when they open an account. I for one always lie about my birth date when I open an account.

      • It is never to protect kids. If it was people would listen to childhood development experts and implement dozens and dozens of policies they have been calling for since the 70s.

        This is probably just about control. For one thing foreign governments are going to gradually force Facebook and Twitter out of their markets. The United States is threatening to invade greenland. You cannot have a huge media presence from a potentially hostile foreign Nation in your country. Billionaires and the wealthy elite in

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mjwx ( 966435 )

          It is never to protect kids. If it was people would listen to childhood development experts and implement dozens and dozens of policies they have been calling for since the 70s.

          This is probably just about control. For one thing foreign governments are going to gradually force Facebook and Twitter out of their markets. The United States is threatening to invade greenland. You cannot have a huge media presence from a potentially hostile foreign Nation in your country. Billionaires and the wealthy elite in general are also hoping to use this and other think of the children bullshit laws to lock down the internet for their own Financial benefit.

          So a little bit of geopolitics in a little bit of big business assholes and absolutely nobody giving a shit about the future or well-being of children.

          Could you tell us these policies that have been called for since the 1970s? In particular in Australia, which is a damned sight better than the US when it comes to child welfare and education.

          What we're seeing is not control, rather the standard reactionary politics that is popular in Australia. Blame the youth, get a boost in the over 40s polls and there's a lot more voters in their 50s and over than in their 20s... and it's not like those in their 20s have much of a choice, both the main parties hate

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Well, I guess we will get two groups of kids in the future: Fist, those that can get past this idiotic measure or that have friends that help them do it. And second, those that get left behind. Or maybe, against all odds, the second group will actually have some real benefits from this.

        In any case, the whole thing is a drastic experiment with unwilling participants and uncertain outcome.

        • It's wrong to call the whole thing an experiment. It's the shutting down of a prior experiment. Or rather, it's putting guardrails around the prior experiment, since the population isn't permanently barred from accessing social media.

      • The application of this law is more than just "what is your date of birth". Facebook uses analytics to determine the age of the account, then requests an ID if it thinks the account is that of someone breaching the law.

        You can lie, but Facebook knows. They probably know more about you than you do. They probably know your real name just form your Slashdot ID... even if you never gave it to them.

    • Oh, no! What will these corporations do if they can reach young consumers with product placements?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      This could ultimately lead to new types of social media like peer to peer solutions or going back to things like the old SMS text messages for interactions between teenagers.

      I suspect that the cure of not having access to social media is not a cure at all but a curse and cause some kids to get even more isolated. There are kids that even though they have a lot of neighbors don't fit in with them while they can find similarly minded online.

      • Those kids had those same problems always. Their job is to grow up and fit into society. If they're doing a bad job about it, shielding them from society is not a good way to make them fit better into society.

        Kids are 1) adaptable and 2) like to complain a lot and 3) will get over it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        This could ultimately lead to new types of social media like peer to peer solutions or going back to things like the old SMS text messages for interactions between teenagers.

        Which is fine. Because neither of those two generally are using exploitative algorithms to encourage engagement and put products in front of eyeballs. In other words, they aren't selling the user to companies and trying to force them to engage.

        We've had tons of ways to interact with other kids - phones were a relatively new thing, but m

    • Many of these accounts are likely adults who refuse to upload an ID.

  • Meanwhile... (Score:3)

    by Randseed ( 132501 ) on Saturday January 17, 2026 @10:44AM (#65931228)
    Sources seem to indicate that Tor usage has increased exponentially in Australia, as well as many United States states, predominately southern ones and Utah. VPN services not located in the United States, the United Kingdom, or Australia are also expecting windfall profits in 2026. Torrent-based media piracy through Tor and VPNs is already spiking.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by quall ( 1441799 )

      In America, they're trying to add legislation to limit what VPN providers can do in order to prevent spoofing. I bet Australia will too. So... VPNs are probably going to be a lot less useful in the future as well.

      • In America, they're trying to add legislation to limit what VPN providers can do in order to prevent spoofing. I bet Australia will too. So... VPNs are probably going to be a lot less useful in the future as well.

        The problem with that is that it isn't practical at all. It breaks every kind of business I can think of, and will never pass nationally because of it. Any state that manages to cram it through their legislature and signed into law will see a mass exodus of business because you wouldn't even be able to run a bank in that state. Or do telehealth, or much of anything else. Then there are practical ways to "stealth" the VPN, such as just opening an SSH tunnel to a server in Switzerland and running the totality

        • It breaks every kind of business I can think of, and will never pass nationally because of it.

          Most businesses won't be affected, because the wording on VPN ban legislation I've seen include something to the effect of banning services that are "designed to evade" the Taliban-like restrictions these states are imposing. Most business VPN's don't fall into that category.

        • In America, they're trying to add legislation to limit what VPN providers can do in order to prevent spoofing. I bet Australia will too. So... VPNs are probably going to be a lot less useful in the future as well.

          The problem with that is that it isn't practical at all. It breaks every kind of business I can think of, and will never pass nationally because of it.

          Nah. Businesses don't generally use commercial VPN services (NetVPN, et al), they run their own servers. So if they can regulate commercial VPN offerings it will mostly shut down consumer use for region-shifting, but won't affect businesses. Actually restricting commercial VPN offerings is non-trivial, of course, and will always be somewhat leaky, but they can probably prevent VPNs from being usable by most consumers if they try.

          • In America, they're trying to add legislation to limit what VPN providers can do in order to prevent spoofing. I bet Australia will too. So... VPNs are probably going to be a lot less useful in the future as well.

            The problem with that is that it isn't practical at all. It breaks every kind of business I can think of, and will never pass nationally because of it.

            Nah. Businesses don't generally use commercial VPN services (NetVPN, et al), they run their own servers. So if they can regulate commercial VPN offerings it will mostly shut down consumer use for region-shifting, but won't affect businesses. Actually restricting commercial VPN offerings is non-trivial, of course, and will always be somewhat leaky, but they can probably prevent VPNs from being usable by most consumers if they try.

            Also, businesses really should wise up and stop using VPNs. Their requirement is a symbol of a fundamentally broken security model, one that assumes that corporate LANs are trustworthy.

            IBM had the right of this 30 years ago: when visitors came to the IBM offices they were shocked to find that the conference rooms all had Ethernet (and Token Ring -- this was IBM 30 years ago) ports in the tables that anyone could use and dropped them right onto IBM's corporate LAN. IBM corporate security realized that no

    • Sources seem to indicate that Tor usage has increased exponentially in Australia, as well as many United States states, predominately southern ones and Utah. VPN services not located in the United States, the United Kingdom, or Australia are also expecting windfall profits in 2026. Torrent-based media piracy through Tor and VPNs is already spiking.

      Cite?

    • One Tor user going to two Tor users may be an incredible growth rate but is largely meaningless. Especially given that analytics are being used to determine whether accounts are in Australia and their age, and not some simple thing like IP endpoint location.

      I doubt the same effort is going to be given to social media as accessing movies. (Note Piracy is on the rise in Australia, and Australia has some quite anti-consumer privacy laws so the concepts of VPNs and Tor have been a thing for decades already). Th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Sources seem to indicate that Tor usage has increased exponentially in Australia, as well as many United States states, predominately southern ones and Utah. VPN services not located in the United States, the United Kingdom, or Australia are also expecting windfall profits in 2026. Torrent-based media piracy through Tor and VPNs is already spiking.

      The thing is, you don't need to use TOR or a VPN to download a torrent in the UK, just to get around the DNS block on popular torrent download sites (or use their proxies).

  • Many people and especially young people have *real* online friends and removing those social connections could produce feelings of isolation and likely depression. I think it would have been far better to regulate the sort of content that young people could access without isolating them socially. Its easy to say that they should "go out and make real friends" but that is very difficult for some people.

    • Living sober is very difficult for some people, that doesn't mean the solution is to start pouring shots for the rest of the kids. Regardless of the fact that they might make friends while taking those shots.

      We fucked up a generation or two. The best time to stop was yesterday, the second-best time is today.

      • We fucked up a generation or two. The best time to stop was yesterday, the second-best time is today.

        QFT

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

        Except this law hasn't stopped or solved anything - "Many teenagers have said in the weeks since the law took effect that they were able to get around the ban by lying about their age, or that they could easily bypass verification systems."

        It is a waste of time and resources for everyone to pass ineffectual laws. You want to ban teenagers from social media? Fine. But do it in a way that works or don't bother.

        • Well DUH, name a law that stops everyone.

          There are a laws to stop Ped0s... but one still became POTUS...who STILL breaks laws

          Drug users, Drink drivers, Thieves, Conmen, gRape, !ncest, etc etc etc....none of those laws stop those who dont care, so the answer according to your way of thinking is to remove the laws ?

          It REALLY Weird how Australia restricted f!rearms and the mass sh00ting stopped, where as good ol USA averages 2 a day.
          As the joke goes...if it weren't for the sh00tings, the world would n

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

            Well DUH, name a law that stops everyone.

            Did I say it had to be 100% effective? No. Nothing ever is. This, however, is not effective at all. It's a mild inconvenience at best.

            • What evidence are you using to deem it a failure? It'll take years for the full implications of the regulations to play out. Reporting and enforcement mechanisms will be rolled out and improved over time (assuming they intend to comply with the law). No doubt there will be an arms race, for a time. There will be made available to parents and schools a way to report underage accounts, if there isn't already.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                What evidence are you using to deem it a failure?

                Everything about it. The way the law was written. The enforcement. The penalties. It's all a joke.

                It'll take years for the full implications of the regulations to play out.

                No, it won't. It's basically already done, because that's how useless and lazy this law was.

                Reporting and enforcement mechanisms will be rolled out and improved over time (assuming they intend to comply with the law).

                Nope. No reason to because there is no real punishment for anyone involved (and the potential fine is meaningless). They knew when they passed it that kids would just be able to get around it with little to no effort. More laws and regulation would be required if you want any additional things to happen.

                There will be made available to parents and schools a way to report underage accounts, if there isn't already.

                Nope. There are n

                • When ISPs started policing BitTorrent traffic, most of the public ceased to torrent. The vibrant ecosystem of trackers from 15-20 years ago is long gone.

                  The availability of VPNs did nothing to stop the smothering of those services for the mass of the general public. But it didn't happen in a month.

                  Lack of meaningful penalties in the law is a serious flaw though, probably inserted at the behest of Tech. Meaningful penalties were applied to BitTorrent users.

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                    When ISPs started policing BitTorrent traffic, most of the public ceased to torrent.

                    Incorrect. Torrenting declined within the general public because of the convenience of legal streaming services.

                    The vibrant ecosystem of trackers from 15-20 years ago is long gone.

                    You mean centralized, public trackers. Which were a bad concept to begin with. Almost every centralized, public tracker I can remember existing was filled with malware and low-quality content. They were garbage. The protocol has evolved and changed to not need those types of trackers because those trackers are how most people got caught.

                    • Incorrect. Torrenting declined within the general public because of the convenience of legal streaming services

                      The convenience of legal streaming went up as the inconvenience of torrenting greatly increased. It's about the relative difficulty of the banned activity compared to the alternative. There are many alternatives for a child to entertain himself that don't involve social media.

                      I'm not sure what qualifies as a "public" tracker in your mind, but the ecosystem I'm talking about were sites like what.cd that most definitely had quality standards, any content you could ever desire, and enough users that everything

                    • Re: (Score:2)

                      by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                      The convenience of legal streaming went up as the inconvenience of torrenting greatly increased.

                      No. The convenience of legal streaming was already there. Torrenting peaked in 2012. Netflix (streaming) started in 2007. Hulu 2008. Starting in 2013, Netflix saw explosive growth. The crackdowns prior to 2012 didn't really effect much. The biggest crackdowns have happened after 2012.

                      There are many alternatives for a child to entertain himself that don't involve social media.

                      Absolutely. But also, social media isn't (necessarily) entertainment. However, some people can entertain themselves with *anything* so... it's kind of whatever.

                      If you're insinuating there are comparable trackers still existing, post the links because I'm looking.

                      I am not. Because like I said, BitTorrent has evolved away from usi

            • How do you know it's ineffective ?

              Just saying it's easy to get around it and pointing to a few who have done it....I refer you to Drunk Driving....easy to get around, lot of people do it.

              Its not the one who break the law that matters as much as the ones it stops and those can not be recorded.

              MORE countries should do this

              And its NOT about "Free speech" , its about a companies faulty product and the harm it causes.
              The companies OWN the speech, the control the speech, they use algorithms to t

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                How do you know it's ineffective ?

                Because I read how the law was implemented and what kind of enforcement and punishment was included - which was essentially nothing outside of the fine for the companies not complying. There is no decent continuous enforcement. There is nothing preventing them from lying about their age. There are no punishments for if a teen gets caught on social media anyway.

                Just saying it's easy to get around it and pointing to a few who have done it....I refer you to Drunk Driving....easy to get around, lot of people do it.

                Bad analogy. It's easy to do any and all illegal things as long as you don't get caught. There is continuous enforcement against drunk drivers and th

                • ANY step is a good step, the alternative is to do nothing.

                  I guess they can made it illegal for Australian companies to advertise on Facebook, with huge fines.
                  They are local, subject to Australian laws, and it takes away funding from Facebook.

                  In fact do that to ALL social media.

                  The WORLD needs to get together and say FU to the USA. Too much of the crap they produce is now harmful
                  Imagine US social media looking financial access to 96% of the worlds population

                  I just like Guns, the US says too ha

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

                    ANY step is a good step, the alternative is to do nothing.

                    Yeah, but this doesn't even count as a step. They picked their foot up and put it right back down in the same spot.

                    The WORLD needs to get together and say FU to the USA.

                    Yeah, good luck with that idea.

                    And I noted one thing, you did NOT have any solutions to offer.

                    Yes, I did. Constantly. Make the law have bite via punishments for violators. I don't care what it is.

                    So lets start and then refine, extend. Get VPN companies on board.... or make payments to them from Australian credicards illegal

                    Not going to work. Most major VPN companies aren't located in Australia, so they aren't going to do anything. And there are other ways to pay than via credit card.

  • Next...I hope they ban people over the age of 70 from driving.

    I don't give a shit what condition they're in. Once they hit seventy...off the roads.

    • Install radials and disc brakes and you make up a lot of the safety gap between a 70 year old car and a modern one.

  • I didn't need the government to tell me this (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ihadafivedigituid ( 8391795 ) on Saturday January 17, 2026 @12:28PM (#65931382)
    My kids, now 20 and nearly 18, were/are 100% banned from all social media platforms until age 18. There were a few limited exceptions for club/interest-oriented forums, but NO "social media" accounts at all. Nothing with a screen and an internet connection was/is permitted in their rooms, and the KGB/Stasi/CIA level of parental spyware running on their devices nearly rendered them useless. As a result, they got something like a childhood.

    They never complained about it when they were younger, and both say they are grateful now after seeing social media's effects on their peers.

    The various platforms are designed to create neurochemical dependency and should be treated like other intentionally addictive things like tobacco.

    • They never complained about it when they were younger

      Of course not. They just did it behind your back. Okay maybe not, but the reality is parenting is an exercise of pretend control. You need the kids to play along for it to work.

      I know plenty of parents who said their kids were banned from electronic devices and then were amazed at how instantly proficient they were the second they picked up such a device. Yeah no shit, they were playing with their friend's iPad without telling you.

  • Now if only they'd deactivate Russian bot accounts, I might feel some small degree of hope. Social media isn't inherently evil, but the people running it certainly are.

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