Meta has held its first Instagram Safety Camp to help parents support their teens online, as Australia moves closer to enforcing a minimum age restriction on social media use.
Speaking at the event on Friday, Meta’s global head of child safety policy Ravi Sinha addressed concerns about age verification and outlined the company’s efforts to create safe, age-appropriate experiences online.
“In Australia, we have a social media ban that’s coming into effect in December, and it’ll preclude teens who are under the age of 16 from having social media,” he said.
“We’ve been working on Teen Accounts for a very long time, so it’s not really responsive to the social media ban.
“We see it as a more practical way for teens to have good experiences online and for parents to supervise them.”
The federal government’s new law aims to protect young people during critical stages of development by preventing them from accessing platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit and X.
Under the legislation, companies will be required to take “reasonable steps” to block users under 16, or face fines of up to $50 million.
Details of how the age ban will be enforced are still being finalised, but verification is expected to involve measures such as ID checks or facial recognition technology.
Sinha said Meta has introduced a number of age assurance measures across its platforms, but conceded it requires a broader, multi-layered approach.
“We take the age that somebody tells us with a grain of salt and work extremely hard using sophisticated AI technology and other means to try and predict whether it’s an adult or teen,” he said.
“We’re going to continue doing everything we can to make sure that we have teens aged correctly and we’re giving them the right experience.”
Meta is rolling out a new combined ‘Block and Report’ option for Teen Accounts, enabling users to take both actions simultaneously.
In June, teens used existing Safety Notices to block accounts one million times and report another one million. One in 10 also clicked on Location Notices, which were introduced this year to flag potential location mismatches between users.
Meta said 99% of people have kept its nudity protection feature turned on, with more than 40% of blurred images received in direct messages staying blurred last month.
Sinha welcomed the ongoing conversation about how best to protect young people online.
“I think we’re all interested in the same thing, which is the best way to keep teens safe online, and I’m sure that that’s the case for the Australian government and others involved in the conversation,” he said.
“What we’ve learned from working with experts and talking to teens and parents is that a more measured approach – one that graduates teens from the level of supervision parents have over them and the strong defaults we set as they get older – is a better approach than an all-out ban.
“It’s very unlikely teens will stop using their phones or wanting to communicate online, so what we worry about is that they would be driven to a place that’s less safe.”
Teen Accounts will continue to be available to 16 and 17-year-olds in Australia once the ban is enacted.
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