Europe Asia News

Starting Wednesday, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Kick, Twitch and TikTok are expected to remove accounts belonging to users under 16 in Australia and prevent them from creating new ones.

Platforms that fail to comply face fines of up to 49.5 million dollars.

The rollout of the ban saw some initial issues. Guardian Australia received several reports of under-16 users successfully passing age verification tests, but the government said it did not expect perfection from day one.

As of Tuesday, all listed platforms except X confirmed they would comply. eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said they recently spoke with X about its compliance but the company had not yet communicated its policy to users.

Bluesky, an alternative to X, announced on Tuesday that it would also ban under-16 users, despite being classified as “low risk” by eSafety due to its small user base of around 50,000 in Australia.

Children have spent recent weeks completing age-verification checks, changing phone numbers and preparing for their accounts to be deactivated.

Kieran Donovan, CEO and co-founder of age-verification service k-ID in Australia, said the service has conducted hundreds of thousands of checks in recent weeks. k-ID is used by platforms including Snapchat.