Australia's government is preparing to take Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube to court for failing to keep children under 16 off their platforms. Communications Minister Anika Wells confirmed the plan in an interview with Bloomberg published October 20, saying the eSafety Commissioner now has the legal tools to build a case against all five companies at once.
A Law With Teeth, But No Enforcement Yet
The ban took effect on December 10, 2025, under the Online Safety Act. Section 63D requires platforms to take "reasonable steps" to prevent age-restricted users from holding accounts. Penalties were originally capped at A$49.5 million, but the government doubled that figure to A$109.2 million - roughly $76 million - after six months of visible non-compliance. Despite the threat of fines, no enforcement action has yet been filed, and the investigation that began in March has instead focused on gathering evidence.
That changed in September, when the eSafety Commissioner gained expanded investigative powers. She can now compel any person believed to hold relevant information to produce documents, and summon individuals - including current or former employees of the platforms - to testify under oath. Refusal to answer carries a penalty of up to twelve months in prison. Wells described this as the mechanism that will let Commissioner Julie Inman Grant "gather the evidence that she needs to take those five companies to the Federal Court."
Compliance Efforts Versus Persistent Use
The platforms have not been passive. By June, the government reported that more than 5 million accounts belonging to under-16s had been removed, deactivated or restricted, with Meta alone citing over 750,000 removals across Facebook and Instagram in Australia. Meta has also described using artificial intelligence to scan posts, comments, bios and captions for contextual signs of underage users, such as references to birthdays or school grades.
Yet independent research suggests these measures have not closed the gap. A University of Chicago working paper found that roughly 73% of 14- and 15-year-olds covered by the ban were still using the restricted platforms, and a study in the British Medical Journal pointed to "limited implementation, incomplete compliance, and substantial circumvention." A government survey of parents found that around seven in ten reported their child still held an account on one of the major platforms. The eSafety Commissioner has acknowledged that proving non-compliance requires more than showing some underage users remain - what counts as "reasonable" effort, she has said, is ultimately a matter for the courts.
A Law Facing Challenges From Both Directions
The Online Safety Act is also being contested on civil liberties grounds. Reddit and the Digital Freedom Project have taken the law to the High Court, arguing it forces "intrusive and potentially insecure verification processes on adults as well as minors." That case is scheduled for November, placing the government in the unusual position of defending the law's constitutionality while simultaneously preparing to sue platforms for not enforcing it aggressively enough.
The tension points to a structural problem rather than a simple compliance failure. The law prohibits platforms from mandating government or Digital ID unless they offer alternative verification methods that are "reasonable in the circumstances" - a deliberately vague standard meant to avoid turning every user into a verified identity holder. But without robust identity checks, age verification relies on behavioral inference, self-reporting, or AI pattern-matching, all of which teenagers have proven adept at circumventing. Tightening enforcement further would likely mean subjecting adult users to the same scrutiny, a trade-off the government has yet to publicly address. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has framed the issue as one of corporate will rather than technical limits, stating in June that "big tech are not doing enough to comply with the law." Whether the Federal Court agrees - or whether it finds the platforms have already taken reasonable steps within the bounds of a workable system - will shape not only this case but the global debate over how far platforms can be made to police the age of their users without undermining the privacy of everyone else.