More countries weigh teen social media ban, experts warn it’s ‘lazy’
Generation Z girl looking at smartphone screen feeling sad while browsing social media.
Commemorative Jpeg | An | Getty Images
Governments around the world are making efforts to curb young people’s use of social media due to growing evidence of potential harms, but critics argue blanket bans are an ineffective quick fix.
Australia became the first country to impose a blanket social media ban on under-16s in December; It has required platforms like Meta’s Instagram, ByteDance’s TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube, Elon Musk’s X and Reddit to implement age verification measures or face penalties.
Britain, Spain, France and many other European countries are now trying to follow Australia’s lead. Austria They are preparing their own suggestions. Although a national ban seems unlikely in the USA, legislation efforts continue at the state level.
This comes after Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads, faced two separate defeats in March in lawsuits related to child safety and the harms of social media.
A Santa Fe jury found Meta misled users about child safety in its apps. The next day, a Los Angeles jury ruled that Meta and YouTube designed platform features that harmed the plaintiff’s mental health.
These developments will “unleash a lot more legislation,” Sonia Livingstone, professor of social psychology and director of the London School of Economics’ Digital Futures for Children centre, told CNBC.
But Livingstone said the social media ban on young people was an overblown solution by governments that have failed to properly regulate tech giants for years.
“I think the ban argument is an admission of failure that we can’t regulate corporations, so we can only restrict children,” he said, explaining that the U.S. and Europe already have a lot of unenforced legislation on the books.
“When will governments actually impose sanctions, increase penalties, ban companies if necessary if they do not comply,” he added.
Enforce existing laws
Experts argue that for too long the industry has evaded accountability and the stringent requirements faced by other industries.
“[Governments] enforce the law [and] Livingstone said big tech companies should face a range of regulatory interventions that ban a range of practices they currently engage in.
He highlighted the UK’s Online Security Act, which, according to Livingstone, “requires security by design”; This means features like Snapchat’s “Quick Add” feature, which invites teens to be friends with others, should be stopped.
Livingstone thinks a blanket ban would not be discussed if social media companies had undergone appropriate pre-marketing testing to determine whether their features were safe for their target audiences.
“There are many areas where we have a well-functioning market that requires testing to make sure it meets standards…[before products] “If we did this for AI and social media, we would be in a completely different place and we wouldn’t have to talk about banning kids from anything.”
Josh Golin, executive director of Boston-based nonprofit Fairplay for Kids, told CNBC he wants to see “privacy and security through design legislation rather than blanket bans” across the US.
This includes the passage of the Children and Youth Online Privacy Protection Act to end personal data-driven advertising directed at children; thus there will be “less financial incentive for social media companies to target and addict children.”
Passing the Senate version of the Children’s Online Safety Act (KOSA) is also key to ensuring that platforms are held legally accountable for design features that could lead to addiction or other harm, Golin added.
He added that Meta had successfully lobbied to stop KOSA even though it passed the Senate in 2024. But Golin thinks that if it continues to block the law further, it could “be put in line behind bans because it’s not good to be addictive and unsafe.”
Ban ‘lazy’ and ‘unfair’
According to Livingstone, a blanket social media ban only punishes a generation of young people who are increasingly reliant on online means of interaction. He said bans were a “lazy” solution from governments and an “unfair” outcome for young people.
“This is 15 years of not letting our kids go out and meet their friends. This is 15 years of stopping funding parks and youth clubs for them to meet up,” he said.
“So now a ban would be saying, ‘Guys, we can’t get the edit to work. We can’t update it fast enough. We haven’t given you anything else to do, but it’s too hard. We’ve scared your parents into feeling like there’s nothing they can do, and we’re going to take you away from the service where you’re hoping you’ll feel some sociality and fun.'”
Associate professor and senior policy expert at the Oxford Internet Institute, Dr. Victoria Nash described social media bans as an “extreme” measure that alienates young people from the benefits these platforms provide.
“We know kids and teens get their news online and through apps, so you cut that out,” he said. “In my view, I don’t think that would justify a ban. To me, it justifies social platforms acting more responsibly to reduce their most harmful features.”
He said bans could drive teens and children to less regulated corners of the internet that don’t have the same protections.
Many young Australians ignored the social media ban when it first came into effect in December. A. BBC report It found that VPN downloads, which hide users’ locations to avoid country-specific restrictions, increased before the ban.
Additionally, according to the report, downloads of some apps that were not yet affected, such as Lemon8, Yope, and Discord, also increased in the days after the law went into effect.
“According to me [a ban] It definitely gets rid of all the harmful aspects, but it also gets rid of the good ones, and I’m not sure if that’s proportionate yet,” Nash added.
