Meta closes 550,000 Australian children’s accounts, warns ban ‘not meeting objectives’

Meta Platforms said it has shut down almost 550,000 accounts in Australia to comply with the country’s landmark social media ban for children. The social media giant has closed around 330,000 Instagram accounts, 173,000 Facebook accounts and almost 40,000 Threads accounts belonging to people believed to be under 16 years of age, it said in a blog post. The law, which came into effect on December 10, mandates services such as ByteDance’s TikTok and Instagram keep under-16s off their platforms or...