• by Colin Kirkland , 2 hours ago

In compliance with Australia’s trailblazing social-media ban, Meta has used AI-detection technology to remove over 750,000 accounts across Facebook and Instagram that belong to users under 16 years of age.

According to the company’s announcement, Meta has removed around 250,000 teen accounts in the region since January, when the tech giant reported the first 500,000 accounts removed from both social platforms. 

“Enforcement is ongoing, and these numbers will continue to grow,” the company’s announcement explains. “We report our enforcement to the eSafety Commissioner and will continue to publish updates periodically in order to be transparent with the public.”

To detect under-16 accounts in Australia, Meta is using a combination of approaches.

Artificial intelligence systems analyze profiles’ posts, comments, bios and captions in order to collect contextual clues, “such as birthday celebrations or mentions of school grades,” according to the announcement.

Parents and community members are also able to report a suspected underage account directly on Facebook and Instagram, or through Meta’s Help Center.

The company uses AI to review these reports and flag users who attempt to create a new account after their previous account was removed. 

According to Australia’s bill, social-media platforms need to prove that they have taken “reasonable steps” to keep users under 16 off their platforms and will not be allowed to require users to show government-issued IDs to prove their age.

The new laws have influenced other nations across the globe to pass their own laws banning underage teens from using a range of digital and social media platforms.

Over the past year, Greece, Indonesia, Austria, Denmark, Slovenia, Germany, Spain, France, various states in the U.S. and most recently, Turkey, have all taken similar actions. 

According to a new Pew Research Center survey, the majority of U.S. adults (56%) now supports banning anyone under 16 from using social media in the country. Only one in five oppose the idea, while about a quarter remain undecided. 

Despite widespread bans on social media, removing teen accounts from social media platforms may not be overly effective.

Earlier this month, Australia’s eSafety Commission found that 81.5% of underage users in the region continued to access restricted platforms.

Meta is facing myriad teen-addiction lawsuits, and was recently fined $567 million for allegedly contributing to a “youth mental health crisis,” according to a New Mexico judge who found that Facebook and Instagram were both designed to maximize the amount of time that underage users spend on the platforms.