Australia Prepares to Sue Meta, TikTok Over Under-16 Ban

Australia is preparing legal action against several of the world’s biggest social media platforms over alleged failures to keep children under 16 from holding accounts. Communications Minister Anika Wells said she expected proceedings involving Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube, Bloomberg reported on October 20. The country’s eSafety regulator is gathering evidence. No finding of a breach has been established by a court, and a planned case should not be mistaken for a lawsuit already filed.

The development moves Australia’s age-restriction experiment toward its most consequential test. The law took effect in December 2025 and requires covered platforms to take reasonable steps to stop under-16s from creating or retaining accounts. It does not demand that every young user vanish from the internet overnight. The legal question is whether the companies’ systems and processes meet the standard set by the law.

In a March compliance update, eSafety identified concerns about Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube. It said children could in some cases repeatedly attempt age checks until they obtained a result allowing access. The regulator also raised issues with pathways for reporting underage accounts and measures to prevent new accounts from being created.

Those observations were grounds for an investigation, not a final ruling that every named platform broke the law. eSafety said enforcement would require evidence showing that a provider had failed to take reasonable steps. That distinction matters because a determined child finding a way around a check is not, by itself, proof that the company ignored its obligations.

The platforms have already removed large numbers of accounts they identified as belonging to children. Meta, for example, said in August that it had removed access to more than 750,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts assessed as under 16. Yet eSafety’s concerns show that account removals alone may not settle whether new sign-ups and evasion are being adequately addressed.

A court case would force sharper answers about age assurance. Platforms can ask for dates of birth, infer age from behaviour, or use identity and facial-age checks, but each method raises questions about accuracy, privacy and mistaken exclusions. Tougher verification can make the ban harder to evade while also collecting more information from legitimate adult users.

TechBooky previously covered a survey showing many Australian teenagers still used restricted services. The new development is different: it is about whether the government can prove that specific companies failed to take the legally required steps. A court’s interpretation could influence how other countries design or enforce similar age restrictions.

For now, the careful headline is that Australia is preparing to sue, not that it has won or even filed a case. TechBooky will follow any formal court action and the platforms’ responses as they become available.