Recently, the Australian government banned social media for children under age 16. Should other countries follow suit?
As always, these things are likely more nuanced than they appear at first glance.
I’m not going to defend social media platforms or the algorithms they’ve created. But anyone who has ever parented or taught a child knows that if you make one thing off limits, they will find an alternative to try and evade the rule.
Bans like this also demonstrate why regulating in reaction to something is much less effective than regulating proactively. For example: the chosen social media platforms in the ban include Youtube and Reddit, but don’t include platforms like Discord or Roblox. For most children, their first “social media” isn’t TikTok or Snapchat, it’s Roblox or Facebook messenger, which has extremely robust and protective parental controls.
And platforms like YouTube are increasingly required for use in K-12 education settings because free resources have become harder and harder for educators and families to access. Trying to play whack-a-mole with what is or isn’t social media is already a recipe for inconsistency.
Then factor in the enforcement: if you make an age-based ban, you have to enforce it. Years ago, Id based enforcement was suggested and almost immediately dismissed as “too easy” to evade or fake.
Then parental consent was suggested, and people said other adults would just do it to help a child evade the restrictions.
So now, tech companies are using facial scans to verify age, and caregivers are NOT happy. But what alternative is there?
We’ve opened pandora’s box and we do have to figure out how to do our best to navigate this situation, but every suggested ban will easily become obsolete as technology quickly evolves. Most importantly, we have to recognize that bans are not mutually exclusive with education, and if we are going to ban social media, we have to still educate kids to be safe online so that when they DO encounter social media, they are’t encountering it as an adult with the digital literacy skills of a young child.
How do you feel about a social media ban?
