&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Meta removes account of 500,000 teens ahead of social media ban in Australia starting from December 10")
Just a week before the official teen social media ban gets started, tech company Meta has begin removing Australian children below 16 years old from Instagram, Facebook and Threads. In November, Meta announced that it had started sending notification to users aged between 13-15 years that their accounts will be closing from December 4.
Approximately 150,000 Facebook users and nearly 350,000 Instagram users are likely to be impacted by this move. Notably, users can only access Threads through an Instagram account. The social media ban in Australia will be starting from December 10. Failure to take reasonable steps to stop those below 16y years from having accounts, companies may face fine up to $33mn. "While Meta is committed to complying with the law, we believe a more effective, standardised, and privacy-preserving approach is needed," a spokesperson for Meta was quoted as saying to BBC on Thursday (December 4).
The government should require the app stores to check the age of the users when they download social media apps and should seek an approval from the parents for those under 16 years. Teens who believe that they are not in the under 16 category, can ask for a review and in order to verify their age, all they need to do is send a 'video selfie'. "With one law, we can protect Generation Alpha from being sucked into purgatory by the predatory algorithms described by the man who created the feature as behavioural cocaine," Australia Communications Minister Anika Wells was quoted as saying in an interview.
