![4.7 Million Underage Kids Removed From Social Media [2026]](/_astro/how-many-children-use-social-media-underage.BrMSAniV_Z1uMvXt.webp)
More than 4.7 million under-16 social media accounts had already been deactivated, removed, or restricted in Australia within days of its social media minimum-age law taking effect on December 10, 2025, according to the eSafety Commissioner's compliance update published in March 2026. That single enforcement action is one of the clearest real-world counts yet of how many children were using social media below a platform's minimum age, and it lines up with older survey data showing 40% of children under 13 in the UK already had their own profile long before any ban existed.
Regulators in Australia, the UK, and the US are now converging on the same underlying problem from three different angles: one country actually removed the accounts, one surveyed how many children hold them, and one polled adults on whether the rest of the world should follow suit. Below is what each data set shows, side by side, with the platform-by-platform breakdown, the enforcement mechanics, and where public opinion currently sits.
How many underage social media accounts were removed in Australia?
Australia's Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 passed parliament in 2024 and took effect on December 10, 2025, requiring age-restricted social media platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under 16 from creating or keeping an account. Unlike parental-consent models used elsewhere, the law does not let a parent override the rule: UNICEF Australia has noted that parents cannot consent on a child's behalf to let them use a covered platform.
The scale of the resulting purge is the largest documented real-world measurement of underage social media use anywhere. The eSafety Commissioner's March 2026 compliance update, drawn from legally enforceable information notices sent to platforms, found that more than 4.7 million under-16 accounts were deactivated, removed, or restricted within days of the law coming into effect, with a further 300,000 accounts subsequently blocked from signing in at all. Meta separately disclosed removing roughly 544,000 accounts across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in the first week alone, from December 4 to 11, 2025, a figure ABC News Australia reported as more than half a million Australian children removed from Meta's platforms in a single week.
Figure 1: The initial nationwide wave dwarfs any single platform's disclosed count. Source: eSafety Commissioner, Social Media Minimum Age Compliance Update (March 2026); ABC News Australia (January 2026).
How is Australia's under-16 rule actually enforced?
The Act covers a defined list of age-restricted social media platforms, reported to include Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, X, Reddit, Twitch, Kick, and Roblox, while platforms without a social feed, such as private messaging or education tools, fall outside its scope. Enforcement runs through the eSafety Commissioner, which can demand evidence of the "reasonable steps" a platform took to keep under-16 users off its service.
Figure 2: The compliance test every covered platform must pass under Australia's minimum age law. Source: eSafety Commissioner, Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024.
Australia doubled the maximum civil penalty for systemic non-compliance to AUD 99 million in June 2026, up from AUD 49.5 million when the law first took effect, a signal that the government considers the initial 4.7 million-account purge a floor rather than a finished job. If your site or app collects any personal information from users who might be under the applicable age threshold in your market, you can generate a privacy policy that documents the age checks, consent flow, and data-handling rules regulators now expect in writing.
What percentage of children use social media before they turn 13?
Long before Australia's ban produced a hard count, survey data already suggested a large share of children were using social media below the standard 13-plus minimum age. Ofcom's Children's Online User Ages research, a study commissioned from YouGov and published in November 2024 as Wave 3, found that 40% of UK children under 13 already have their own profile on a social media app or site, despite the age requirement nearly every major platform sets in its terms of service. A broader 70% of children aged 3 to 12 have a profile on some video-sharing, messaging, livestreaming, or social media app, once platforms without a strict social feed are included.
The Ofcom-commissioned survey drew on the YouGov panel and covered at least 1,500 young people aged 8 to 17 in the UK, with roughly 50 respondents per age group per app or site tested, a design built specifically to measure how far children misrepresent their age to get onto platforms with a stated minimum. That is a materially different research method from Australia's approach, which counts real account removals rather than self-reported survey answers, and the two together suggest the true global figure sits somewhere between a reported one-in-three and the much larger share implied once broader apps are counted. Anyone who has read Children's Online Privacy Statistics 2026 will recognize the same underlying pattern: children's real online behavior consistently runs ahead of the age gates platforms claim to enforce.
Do most Americans support banning social media for children under 16?
Public opinion in the United States has moved toward Australia's approach rather than away from it. Pew Research Center found that 56% of US adults support banning social media for those under 16, versus 21% opposed and 23% unsure, based on a survey of 9,750 US adults drawn from the Center's American Trends Panel and fielded May 26 to June 1, 2026. Support for a ban is highest among parents of children under 18, at 65%, compared with 52% among non-parents.
Figure 3: A majority of US adults now back an under-16 ban outright, with roughly a fifth opposed. Source: Pew Research Center, survey fielded May 26 to June 1, 2026, published July 1, 2026.
Support for less drastic guardrails runs even higher than for an outright ban: 85% of US adults back a parental consent requirement before a minor can join social media, 78% back mandatory age verification, and 78% back built-in time limits for minors, according to the same Pew survey. Every one of those figures rose from where Pew found them in 2023, when parental consent stood at 81%, age verification at 71%, and time limits at 69%, showing that US appetite for guardrails has grown even as the specific policy of an outright ban remains the most contested option on the table.
Which age groups back the strongest limits on children's social media use?
Support for an under-16 ban is not evenly spread across US adults. Pew's breakdown by age shows adults aged 30 to 49, the group most likely to be actively parenting school-age or teenage children, expressing the strongest support at 63%, followed by adults aged 50 to 64 at 57%.
Figure 4: Support peaks among adults in their prime parenting years and is lowest among the oldest respondents. Source: Pew Research Center, survey fielded May 26 to June 1, 2026.
Adults aged 18 to 29, many of whom grew up as the first generation of social media users themselves, back a ban at a lower 52%, while adults 65 and older register the lowest support of any age group at 49%. Political affiliation shows less of a gap than age does: 59% of Republicans and Republican-leaning adults support a ban versus 54% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning adults, a narrower split than the 14-point gap between the strongest and weakest supporting age brackets.
How has policy on underage social media use evolved since 1998?
Regulation of children's data and children's access to social platforms has moved in fits and starts for nearly three decades, with the pace of new rules accelerating sharply since 2024.
Figure 5: Three decades of age-gate policy compressed into a two-year sprint of actual enforcement. Source: US Federal Trade Commission (COPPA, 1998); eSafety Commissioner (2024 to 2026); Ofcom (November 2024); Pew Research Center (July 2026).
The 27-year gap between COPPA's 1998 age line and Australia's first real enforcement of a comparable rule is itself part of the story: for most of that period, the 13-plus minimum age that platforms wrote into their terms of service had no external body checking whether it was actually followed, which is a large part of why researchers and regulators only now have a hard number for how many children were using social media below it.
Comparing the three data points
| Country or region | What was measured | Headline figure | Source and year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | Under-16 accounts actually removed after the law took effect | 4.7 million accounts | eSafety Commissioner, March 2026 |
| United Kingdom | Children under 13 who self-report having their own profile | 40% | Ofcom Children's Online User Ages Wave 3, November 2024 |
| United States | Adults who support banning social media for under-16s | 56% | Pew Research Center, July 2026 |
The Bottom Line
Three different measurement methods, real account removals in Australia, a UK age-misrepresentation survey, and a US opinion poll, all point in the same direction: a substantial share of children are on social media before platforms' own minimum age allows it, and public and regulatory tolerance for that gap is narrowing fast. The 4.7 million figure from Australia's compliance update is the closest thing to a hard census of underage social media use that any country has produced, and it should be read as a floor rather than a ceiling, since the eSafety Commissioner's own follow-up found hundreds of thousands of additional accounts still trying to sign in weeks later. For any site or app that collects information from users who could plausibly be under the age threshold in the markets it serves, that regulatory direction is a reason to check current disclosures now rather than after an enforcement notice arrives: you can generate a privacy policy that reflects the age-related consent and data-handling language regulators are increasingly asking platforms to document.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many children were using social media underage in Australia? More than 4.7 million under-16 accounts had already been deactivated, removed, or restricted within days of Australia's social media minimum-age law taking effect on December 10, 2025, according to the eSafety Commissioner's compliance update published in March 2026. A further 300,000 accounts were later blocked from signing in at all.
What percentage of children under 13 use social media? 40% of children under 13 in the UK already have their own social media profile despite the 13-plus minimum age most platforms set, according to Ofcom's Children's Online User Ages research (Wave 3, November 2024). A broader 70% of children aged 3 to 12 have a profile on some video-sharing, messaging, livestreaming, or social media app.
Do most Americans support banning social media for children under 16? Yes. 56% of US adults support banning social media for those under 16, versus 21% opposed and 23% unsure, per Pew Research Center's survey of 9,750 US adults fielded May 26 to June 1, 2026. Support rises to 65% among parents of children under 18.
How much did Meta remove from Australia's under-16 ban? Meta disclosed that it removed roughly 544,000 accounts across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in the first week of enforcement alone, December 4 to 11, 2025, according to Meta's own figures as reported by ABC News Australia.
Where the Numbers Come From
- eSafety Commissioner. (2026). "Social Media Minimum Age: Compliance Update." More than 4.7 million under-16 accounts deactivated, removed, or restricted, plus 300,000 further accounts blocked from signing in, published March 2026 based on platform information notices.
- eSafety Commissioner. "Social Media Age Restrictions." Official description of the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024's obligations, covered platforms, and reasonable-steps requirement.
- ABC News Australia. (2026). "Meta removes 550,000 accounts from social media platforms to comply with Australia's under-16 ban." Meta's disclosed figure of roughly 544,000 accounts across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, first week of enforcement, December 4 to 11, 2025, published January 12, 2026.
- Ofcom. (2024). "Children's Online User Ages 2024, Wave 3 Chart Pack." Research commissioned from YouGov, at least 1,500 young people aged 8 to 17 in the UK surveyed, roughly 50 per age group per app or site, published November 2024. 40% of under-13s report their own social media profile; 70% of 3 to 12 year-olds report a profile on a video-sharing, messaging, livestreaming, or social media app.
- Pew Research Center. (2026). "Majority of Americans support banning social media for kids under 16." Survey of 9,750 US adults, American Trends Panel, fielded May 26 to June 1, 2026, published July 1, 2026.
Note: All figures verified as of August 2026. Australia's compliance figures reflect the eSafety Commissioner's March 2026 update and may rise further as later information notices are processed; the UK figures are the most recent published wave of Ofcom's tracking study as of this writing. Figures are scheduled for review at this post's next refresh.
