Governments worldwide are grappling with the escalating concerns surrounding teenage social media usage, implementing or considering outright bans amidst growing evidence of potential psychological and developmental harms. However, critics argue that these sweeping prohibitions are a simplistic and ultimately ineffective approach to a complex societal issue.
Australia made headlines as the first nation to enact a comprehensive ban on social media for individuals under 16 in December. This legislation compels platforms, including Meta’s Instagram, ByteDance’s TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube, Elon Musk’s X, and Reddit, to implement robust age verification protocols or face significant penalties. This move has spurred similar legislative efforts in several European nations. The United Kingdom, Spain, France, and Austria are actively developing their own proposals, signaling a growing international trend. While a federal ban in the United States appears unlikely, individual states are actively pursuing legislation to curb teen access.
These regulatory actions come on the heels of two significant legal setbacks for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, in March. Both cases involved allegations of child safety breaches and the harmful impacts of social media on young users. A jury in Santa Fe found Meta had misled users regarding the safety of its applications for children. In a separate case the following day, a Los Angeles jury determined that Meta and YouTube’s platform designs contributed to the mental health struggles of a plaintiff.
These legal defeats are anticipated to “unleash a lot more legislation,” according to Sonia Livingstone, a professor of social psychology and director of the Digital Futures for Children center at the London School of Economics. However, Livingstone contends that a blanket ban on social media for teenagers represents a “slapdash solution” from governments that have historically failed to adequately regulate technology giants.
“I think the argument for a ban is an admission of failure that we cannot regulate companies, so we can only restrict children,” she stated, emphasizing that existing legislation in both the U.S. and Europe is often inadequately enforced. Livingstone questioned when governments will truly prioritize enforcement, increase penalties, and consider banning non-compliant companies.
**The Case for Enforcing Existing Laws**
Experts posit that the tech sector has largely evaded the stringent accountability and regulatory oversight common in other industries. “Governments should be implementing the law, and big tech companies should be facing a slew of regulatory interventions that forbid a whole series of practices that they currently do,” Livingstone asserted.
She pointed to the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, which mandates “safety by design.” Livingstone argues this principle should curtail features like Snapchat’s “Quick Add,” which facilitates rapid friend requests among teens. She believes a widespread ban would not even be under consideration if social media companies had undergone rigorous pre-market testing to ensure their features were safe for their intended young audience. “There are lots of areas where we have a well-functioning market that requires testing to establish it meets the standards… before products can go into the market,” she explained. “If we did that for AI and for social media, we would be in a whole different place and we’d not be having to talk about banning children from anything.”
Josh Golin, executive director at the Boston-based non-profit Fairplay for Kids, advocates for “privacy and safety by design legislation rather than blanket bans” across the U.S. This includes passing the Children and Teen Online Privacy Protection Act to halt personalized advertising targeting children, thereby reducing the “financial incentive for social media companies to target and addict kids.” Golin also stressed the importance of passing the Senate’s version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) to hold platforms legally accountable for design features that can foster addiction or other harms. He noted that Meta has previously lobbied successfully against KOSA, even after its passage in the Senate in 2024. Golin cautioned that continued obstruction by tech giants could lead to increased public support for outright bans, as “addictive and unsafe is not okay.”
**A Ban is ‘Lazy’ and ‘Unfair’**
Livingstone views a broad social media ban as a punishment for a generation that has increasingly relied on online platforms for social interaction. She characterized such bans as a “lazy” governmental response and an “unfair” outcome for young people. “It’s the 15 years in which we don’t let our children go outside and meet their friends. It’s the 15 years in which we stopped funding parks and youth clubs for them to meet in,” she stated. “So a ban now is to say to ‘Children, we can’t make the regulation work. We can’t update it fast enough. We haven’t built you anything else to do, but that’s just tough. We’ve terrified your parents into feeling that there’s nothing they can do, and we’re going to take you away from the service where you hoped you would feel some sociability and entertainment.'”
Dr. Victoria Nash, an associate professor and senior policy fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, described social media bans as an “extreme” measure that deprives young people of the potential benefits these platforms offer. “We know children and young people get their news online and through apps, so you cut that off,” she observed. “My view would be that I don’t think this justifies a ban. To me, what this justifies is more responsible behavior by social platforms to cut down on their most harmful features.”
Nash warned that bans could inadvertently push young users toward less regulated parts of the internet, which may lack adequate protections. Evidence from Australia suggests that many teenagers circumvented the ban, with VPN downloads surging prior to its implementation, according to BBC reports. Furthermore, downloads of alternative, less regulated apps like Lemon8, Yope, and Discord also saw significant increases in the days following the law’s enactment. “I think it [a ban] certainly gets rid of all the harmful aspects, but it gets rid of the good ones too and I’m just not yet sure if that’s proportionate,” Nash concluded.
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