Restricting social media for children

[SnoopCatt]

Australia has recently enacted restrictions on children under 16 from accessing some social media. At the time of the law coming into effect (December 10 2025), there are 10 sites that are subject to the restrictions. The 10 sites are Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Twitch and YouTube. The list is dynamic, so other sites could be added. The platforms could face fines of up to $AU 49.5 million if they fail to take reasonable steps to block young users. There are no penalties for users who breach the restrictions. At the time of posting, one site (Reddit) has formally lodged a challenge in Australia's High Court.

European governments are reportedly considering similar bans, but with some key differences such as parental consent, curfews, and restricting addictive features.

There are reasonable arguments both for and against the restrictions. And there are certainly technical questions around how sites should verify someone's age, and what steps people can take if they have been wrongly banned.

What do you think?

 

[Da Xiang]

I have my doubts about governments replacing parents. As there is nothing inherently wrong with using social media--only the abuse of social media is where there can be problems and that's where parenting comes in. Expecting the government to control and enforce usage is a cop-out.

 

[Tijger]

I have my doubts about governments replacing parents. As there is nothing inherently wrong with using social media--only the abuse of social media is where there can be problems and that's where parenting comes in. Expecting the government to control and enforce usage is a cop-out.

Of course its a cop out but when its pretty clear parents either arent going to do it and prefer someone else to be the boogeyman or lack the knowledge and skill to do it I think the time has come for government to do it.

I think the pervasive nature of social media is now problematic especially for children and all reseach done about it points pretty clearly in that direction, other countries are moving the same direction with bans on smartphones (this is aimed at social media as well) in schools for instance. Regulating social media is clearly not going to happen or be effective so I understand the rationale for approaching it this way.

 

[crombie]

My issue isn't about the children. It is about having to trust these companies with my SPI in verifying my age with an exact and specific date. I admit that there are sites like Facebook where I have a partial date (month/day) input as I like getting the birthday messages. But there are others that have a birth date field that is not required that I have nothing entered. I don't want to be required to share this SPI with vendors that already are showing they are not the best at protecting their 'customers' interests.

 

[poochyena]

There are reasonable arguments both for

such as? What exactly is the argument for it and what is the criteria?

 

[ramases]

The problem isn't social media per se, it is that surveillance advertisement incentivizes creating an environment that is toxic wherein the very toxicity creates part of the profit motive.

Ideally we'd choose that this type of surveillance advertisement is not a business model we as a society want. Europe already kind of does that, though it still uses nudging in the form of the GDPR: The difficulties it creates certain business models aren't some short-commings in the laws; they're deliberate design goals.

But of course there's a lot of moneyed interests that wants to preserve those business models, leading to a conflict between different interest sets. My personal perception is that those laws essentially are a stop-gap measure by politics, a measure that is meant to reduce the harm produced by the current status quo to a particularly vulnerable segment of the population while the wider conflict is being reconciled in the coming years.

--

As for how to make this privacy-preserving ... well, this isn't really hard to make it a lot better than it currently is.

Our local eID scheme already made some changes to allow pseudonymous identification flows, and it can already tell you if that person is older than 14, older than 16, older than 18 or older than 21. For the technical audience, you talk to it via OIDC, and the person identifier was moved from the sub-claim to a separate claim, and it supports the ISO 18013-5 claims related to age.

We already also have the frameworks and laws for how trust service providers work.

All that needs to be done is to create a flow where you only request the age claims but do not request any personal data claims. Then you create a trust service provider certification related to privacy-preserving age checks, where a provider is assessed for whether a) they accurately assess the age claims and produce age assertions correctly, and b) do so without requesting the claims that'd allow them to trace them back to the identity used to create the age assertion. Due to the way OIDC works this is also inspectable to some extend to the user, because the user is told what information was requested by the relying party when they authenticate themselves.

At this point you can't de-anonymize the age assertion without collusion (which you outlaw) between a government actor operating the eID and the private sector provider of the age assertion service.

This isn't perfect, because they could collude to break the law, but given that this already gives much much stronger privacy guarantees than the current, purely private-sector status quo for either age checks or social networks.

 

[JonTD]

My issue isn't about the children. It is about having to trust these companies with my SPI in verifying my age with an exact and specific date. I admit that there are sites like Facebook where I have a partial date (month/day) input as I like getting the birthday messages. But there are others that have a birth date field that is not required that I have nothing entered. I don't want to be required to share this SPI with vendors that already are showing they are not the best at protecting their 'customers' interests.

So I'm of the mind here that no one is owed access to social media and that it is the government's job to protect broader public interest and not users of social media. If you don't want to provide validation data to them, then don't. You don't have to participate online. There are also ways to provide validation data that is both accurate and reasonably anonymized.

That said, I think it's disingenuous to say these kinds of bans must effectively require user validation. You can also effectively moderate user content, particularly user content that is widely pushed by algorithms. You can also very easily monitor how and what kind of user generated content is monetized. That just cuts into profits. But all of that can be done via regulation. Make Meta legally liable for real damage their content causes in the real world and we'd be back to cute cat pics pretty fucking fast.

But I think if social media companies are not going to be held liable for content, then it is time to make broad changes that allow us to restrict who sees that content, how that content can and is distributed, and also ensure end users know exactly who is generating and pushing that content so we can hold SOMEONE accountable if we are going to say social media is the new "public square." So maybe the anonymous Internet should die.

Da Xiang

As there is nothing inherently wrong with using social media--only the abuse of social media is where there can be problems and that's where parenting comes in.

There is nothing inherently wrong with lots of things we regulate in broader public interest or to protect minors specifically. We still do it and it has still been a boon to child safety and public safety more generally. The physical world is not uniquely different from the digital world in this.

 

[crombie]

So I'm of the mind here that no one is owed access to social media and that it is the government's job to protect broader public interest and not users of social media. If you don't want to provide validation data to them, then don't. You don't have to participate online.

To be fair, my distaste is not wanting to verify. It is that I do not trust these companies to keep my SPI safe. I will verify if required, but I would not wish for it to be in a persistent form where it has to live on my profile. If they setup a secure service, disconnected from their own with provable disposal of SPI once confirmed, then sign me up!

The same way I have not and will not save credit card information there for transactional purposes. There are just too many instances right now where high-profile social media accounts get taken over, and become forever lost because there is no accountability with these companies.

 

[Coriolanus]

Probably bad hot take:

I don't like the onerous nature of requiring tech companies collecting ID to verify ages. States like Texas already implemented something like this by requiring porn sites to collect driver's license info, which is just a privacy and security nightmare.

Rather, I would place the emphasis on the parents. Make the parents accountable and responsible for devices they give their children or accounts they set up for their kids. If the kids are distracted in class or school because of social media or their device, then they are no longer allowed to bring those devices to school and the parents are given the equivalent of truancy fines.

 

[sword_9mm]

Probably bad hot take:

I don't like the onerous nature of requiring tech companies collecting ID to verify ages. States like Texas already implemented something like this by requiring porn sites to collect driver's license info, which is just a privacy and security nightmare.

Rather, I would place the emphasis on the parents. Make the parents accountable and responsible for devices they give their children or accounts they set up for their kids. If the kids are distracted in class or school because of social media or their device, then they are no longer allowed to bring those devices to school and the parents are given the equivalent of truancy fines.

I'd love to hold parents more responsible for their children but not sure anyone has the stomach for it.

 

[JonTD]

I'd love to hold parents more responsible for their children but not sure anyone has the stomach for it.

Maybe this is the real hot take, but... why not both? Hold companies accountable for the impacts of the content they push, both to minors specifically and everyone broadly. Hold parents accountable for what they allow their children to do that is harmful.

Also, phone bans in all K12 schools are a tangential issue here that probably needs its own thread. Though I honestly think most reasonable adults are going to go, "Yeah. Generations survived without personal phones in school and it's harming education. That's a good idea. Do that." So not sure how far that discussion will go.

 

[Coriolanus]

I'd love to hold parents more responsible for their children but not sure anyone has the stomach for it.

I do. Parents are accountable for a lot of bad shit kids do. Did the kid take a gun to school? The parents are probably accountable at least civilly, if not criminally. Did the tween drink alcohol? Parents are responsible and accountable for neglect. Did the kid assault another kid? The parents are responsible and accountable.

So why treat device usage any differently? Why impose overly onerous identity verifications on people who might not want to provide ID data or companies who either shouldn't or don't want to handle that kind of highly sensitive info (which can open themselves to civil litigation if it's lost or breached)?

 

[JonTD]

companies who either shouldn't or don't want to handle that kind of highly sensitive info (which can open themselves to civil litigation if it's lost or breached)?

Once again you are assuming an implementation that does not have to be. That's not really an argument against age-restricted social media usage. It's an argument against a specific way to implement that others have already pointed out there are technical solutions for.

Every social media company you use already actively wants and stores age data by inference by the way, even if you didn't provide it outright.

 

[GohanIYIan]

I do. Parents are accountable for a lot of bad shit kids do. Did the kid take a gun to school? The parents are probably accountable at least civilly, if not criminally. Did the tween drink alcohol? Parents are responsible and accountable for neglect. Did the kid assault another kid? The parents are responsible and accountable.

So why treat device usage any differently? Why impose overly onerous identity verifications on people who might not want to provide ID data or companies who either shouldn't or don't want to handle that kind of highly sensitive info (which can open themselves to civil litigation if it's lost or breached)?

Is it actually differently? Kids can't buy alcohol legally. I think in most places they can't buy a gun. We don't actually expect parents to follow their kids around 24/7 to make sure they aren't obtaining alcohol or guns. Instead we have laws intended to make that unnecessary. Like all laws they are not perfectly enforced, but surely they make life easier for parents.

I'm not sure why you would need to retain any information as long as you can demonstrate the account creation process includes a mandatory age check. If a government regulator goes into a liquor store and observes they aren't checking IDs the store will probably get in trouble, but at the same time the store isn't expected to be able to produce a copy of an ID from a sale that happened 3 weeks ago to prove that person was of age.

 

[poochyena]

Is it actually differently? Kids can't buy alcohol legally. I think in most places they can't buy a gun. We don't actually expect parents to follow their kids around 24/7 to make sure they aren't obtaining alcohol or guns. Instead we have laws intended to make that unnecessary. Like all laws they are not perfectly enforced, but surely they make life easier for parents.

alcohol and guns are deadly to children, social media isn't.

 

[Coriolanus]

I'm not sure why you would need to retain any information as long as you can demonstrate the account creation process includes a mandatory age check. If a government regulator goes into a liquor store and observes they aren't checking IDs the store will probably get in trouble, but at the same time the store isn't expected to be able to produce a copy of an ID from a sale that happened 3 weeks ago to prove that person was of age.

You need to retain at least some of the information because you need to prove to the regulator that you did the check properly. You will also need to retain it for a period of time for audit purposes.

Is it actually differently? Kids can't buy alcohol legally. I think in most places they can't buy a gun. We don't actually expect parents to follow their kids around 24/7 to make sure they aren't obtaining alcohol or guns. Instead we have laws intended to make that unnecessary. Like all laws they are not perfectly enforced, but surely they make life easier for parents.

Guns and alcohol almost always require a human in the loop making the decision whether somebody is underaged or not. Also, for at least alcohol, the check isn't being stored anywhere that can be stored or leaked later. It's literally somebody glancing at the DOB on a card. It's harder for social media companies to do the same kind of thing.

 

[dio82]

alcohol and guns are deadly to children, social media isn't.

Not deadly. Harmful is all that is needed. And social media IS HARMFUL to children, no questions asked.

 

[Nazgutek]

alcohol and guns are deadly to children, social media isn't.

In the same way that a child can consume alcohol and not die, or own a gun and not shoot themselves, social media can be used by children and not result in death. However, social media is used for cyberbullying and pushing pro-suicide content to teens, and has directedly resulted in suicides. Social media can be deadly to children.

 

[Louis XVI]

such as? What exactly is the argument for it and what is the criteria?

I don’t feel too strongly on either side about this, but I’d say that an argument for is:

• Social media is bad for children (and everyone else, really). It interferes with their mental, physical, and social development, and puts them in situations that could cause significant harm to themselves or others.
• Many parents are unable to monitor their kids’ social media use 24-7. They may have to work long hours and leave the kids at home supervised by older siblings. They may not have the strongest intellectual, social, or parenting skills themselves. They may not have the technical knowhow to outsmart their kids’ attempts to access stuff they aren’t supposed to. I had a huge struggle with one of my kids over non-permitted use of the computer that I only eventually won after endless struggle by finally taking away her computer’s power cord at night. And that was 20 years ago, when we were dealing with stationary, large desktop computers rather than tiny, mobile phones.
• Even if the parents are on it like hawks, kids can still access social media via friends’ devices while out of the home.
• If we agree that social media is harmful enough to children that they shouldn’t access it, and parents can’t be relied upon to prevent access, then there’s a role for the government to step in and prevent it.

All that being said, I think the privacy concerns for adults are pretty significant, and I don’t have the technical knowledge to know if they can be reasonably surmounted.

 

[GohanIYIan]

You need to retain at least some of the information because you need to prove to the regulator that you did the check properly. You will also need to retain it for a period of time for audit purposes.

Why? Why is it necessary to be able to prove after the fact that you did the check properly, when in other ID checking scenarios that is not expected and you merely have to demonstrate that your regular process includes the proper check(s)?

Also, in the Australian setup that kicked off this thread, it sounds like the most common age verification method is to submit a photo of yourself that is then run through an algorithmic age estimator. I'm not sure what the point of retaining that to be audited later would be, but a picture of you isn't exactly sensitive information.

 

[Soriak]

That's a lot of words to describe that kids will start using VPNs and socially exclude those who can't make it work.

That's also ignoring that "social media" is an absurdly broad category. The law is banning access to Reddit and YouTube. Guess a 15 year old cannot watch videos to learn how to craft something or learn some programming or the many videos that explain school-related concepts. (Not really, of course: parents will help them avoid it, and once it's avoided for one kind of video, they can watch whatever they want.)

 

[poochyena]

Not deadly. Harmful is all that is needed. And social media IS HARMFUL to children, no questions asked.

whats the criteria of "social media" and whats the evidence?

social media is used for cyberbullying and pushing pro-suicide content to teens, and has directedly resulted in suicides. Social media can be deadly to children.

alcohol and guns cause deaths. Social media does not cause cyberbullying. "Cyberbullying" is literally just bullying done on the internet. Its not specific to social media at all. It can be done through texts, emails, or any other form on online communication. Bullying doesn't stop with the ban of some social media website.

Social media is bad for children (and everyone else, really). It interferes with their mental, physical, and social development, and puts them in situations that could cause significant harm to themselves or others.

how?

If we agree that social media is harmful enough to children

We don't.

That's a lot of words to describe that kids will start using VPNs and socially exclude those who can't make it work.

Or just use different sites. Or even create their own. When I was a teen in highschool, flash game websites were banned on the school libraries, so I made my own website and put games on it and told people about it. There were also already loads of other websites that "should" have been blocked but weren't because they were lesser known or foreign names so traditional blocks didn't work.
Teens will just move onto other social media websites. There are loads.

 

[Coriolanus]

Why? Why is it necessary to be able to prove after the fact that you did the check properly, when in other ID checking scenarios that is not expected and you merely have to demonstrate that your regular process includes the proper check(s)?

If a federal regulator goes to audit your financial records to see whether you made a transaction with a sanctioned party, do you think they will look at your process documentation and say "Hey, looks legit. No problems for me."?

Or do you think they will ask for your transaction records and verify that you aren't doing business with a sanctioned party?

Also, in the Australian setup that kicked off this thread, it sounds like the most common age verification method is to submit a photo of yourself that is then run through an algorithmic age estimator. I'm not sure what the point of retaining that to be audited later would be, but a picture of you isn't exactly sensitive information.

1. Algorithmic age estimators are notoriously bad for the 13-17 age group. Heck, even people are bad at it. Are you always sure that you can tell the difference between a 16 year old from an 18 year old?
2. Pictures of you are sensitive data, and you can derive facial biometric data from it (especially from a portrait), which is highly sensitive.
3. You aren't necessarily checking a photo, because a lot of these systems also use liveness detection to overcome people taking a picture of a photo or a screen. So you're oftentimes capturing a video.

 

[iPilot05]

I often wonder if in 50-100 years people will look back on social media (at least in its current form) and think of it the same way we think of smoking. "Wow grandma, what were you all thinking back then?!"

I don't really care for the government just age restricting it, especially when it now requires giving even more information (birthday, government ID) to these companies for verification. But I think the proper way to fix social media will never happen today.

To me, the number one thing is social media can't be free anymore. I'm sure nobody would go for it but if Facebook (as an example) charged a nominal fee for operations and in return got rid of all ads and tracking, it might make it wholesome again. The goal being for users to be the customer, not the product. It would disincentivize AI slop, influencers, invasive analytics etc. etc.

Facebook is a bad example because it's always been shady. But let's say a relatively trustworthy company like Apple set something like this up. $5/mo or bundled with their other services and you basically get everything you want to share photos and thoughts with everyone you know. The usual Apple privacy stuff and a guarantee nothing you post will be sold to an outside firm. I think I might go for that.

 

[concernUrsus]

I do wonder if we should have "truth ID" for some of these social media. We have found out number of accounts are just propaganda from Russia, etc. Though that may be a different topic than age verification.

I am aware of the ironically that we are currently talking on a forum, and hide behind our user names.

 

[iPilot05]

I do wonder if we should have "truth ID" for some of these social media. We have found out number of accounts are just propaganda from Russia, etc. Though that may be a different topic than age verification.

I am aware of the ironically that we are currently talking on a forum, and hide behind our user names.

I feel like real name requirements work in some situations but not others. Facebook, for what it is, seems like it should be required to be actual people with their actual names.Probably because (at least to me) the expectation is you're looking at real people with their real friends and real life photos and comments. But in a forum environment it seems like it would be a lot more lively if you don't have that requirement. Not that I don't stand by what I say on Ars but a dash on anonymity does provide people with a bit of freedom.

And of course there's things like LGBT forums that would never have worked if you needed to display your real name, let alone provide ID just to open an account.

 

[Nazgutek]

alcohol and guns cause deaths. Social media does not cause cyberbullying. "Cyberbullying" is literally just bullying done on the internet. Its not specific to social media at all. It can be done through texts, emails, or any other form on online communication. Bullying doesn't stop with the ban of some social media website.

Banning kids from alcohol doesn't stop underage deaths from drinking. Banning kids from buying guns doesn't stop underage deaths from guns. But both restrictions reduce deaths.

Limiting the ability for a child to be a victim of cyberbullying is a good thing. Did I really have to spell out such a basic concept?

 

[poochyena]

Limiting the ability for a child to be a victim of cyberbullying is a good thing. Did I really have to spell out such a basic concept?

Why not cut out the middleman and just ban bullying? Is there even any evidence that banning social media limits bullying?

 

[sword_9mm]

Parents should be on the hook for bullying as well.

Bullys don't just sprout outta the hedgerow. Parents need to be responsible for shitty behavior.

 

[Nazgutek]

Why not cut out the middleman and just ban bullying?

I'm all ears on how you'd achieve this miracle.

Is there even any evidence that banning social media limits bullying?

How can a child be bullied on social media if they can't access it? That's how it limits bullying. It reduces the possible surface area of bullying. Will it shift bullying to SMS, school grafitti, in-person abuse? Absolutely, but that still limits bullying. Are you just sealioning at this point?

 

[poochyena]

I'm all ears on how you'd achieve this miracle.

anti-harassment laws, and limited restraining orders for people in school that ensure bullies and their victims aren't in the same classrooms and don't communicate with each other. Online communication would make it even easier to prove that harassment is happening, since its all documented.

How can a child be bullied on social media if they can't access it?

by being bullied anywhere else. This is like instead of banning kids buying alcohol, you ban kids from entering a select few chains of grocery stores that sell alcohol, but still allowing them to go to smaller grocery stores and to buy alcohol there.
Kids will just instead be bullied on different websites, through text, at school, at social events, at home, etc.

Absolutely, but that still limits bullying.

When you go to the same place as your bully nearly every single day of the week, limiting social media doesn't actually limit anything.

 

[Louis XVI]

anti-harassment laws, and limited restraining orders for people in school that ensure bullies and their victims aren't in the same classrooms and don't communicate with each other. Online communication would make it even easier to prove that harassment is happening, since its all documented.

Restraining orders in school is not a serious suggestion. Getting a restraining order requires significant money, time, and sophistication; exceedingly few parents have all three of these things. In my 15 years as a school attorney, I never encountered a situation in which a student obtained a restraining order against another student. (Once a weirdo gym teacher got a restraining order against a student; it created an enormous headache for everyone.)

by being bullied anywhere else. This is like instead of banning kids buying alcohol, you ban kids from entering a select few chains of grocery stores that sell alcohol, but still allowing them to go to smaller grocery stores and to buy alcohol there.
Kids will just instead be bullied on different websites, through text, at school, at social events, at home, etc.

We’ve got rules against bullying kids at school. Kids can be severely disciplined for bullying kids at or on the way to or from school. It’s appropriate to take measures to fight all vectors of bullying. Just because you think one vector might work or isn’t sufficiently blocked doesn’t constitute a reason to oppose measures against other vectors.

When you go to the same place as your bully nearly every single day of the week, limiting social media doesn't actually limit anything.

School staff should take care of bullying at school. At my schools, we took that obligation extremely seriously. But we couldn’t stop cyberbullying. That’s why separate measures are needed for that vector.

 

[concernUrsus]

Restraining orders in school is not a serious suggestion. Getting a restraining order requires significant money, time, and sophistication; exceedingly few parents have all three of these things. In my 15 years as a school attorney, I never encountered a situation in which a student obtained a restraining order against another student. (Once a weirdo gym teacher got a restraining order against a student; it created an enormous headache for everyone.)



We’ve got rules against bullying kids at school. Kids can be severely disciplined for bullying kids at or on the way to or from school. It’s appropriate to take measures to fight all vectors of bullying. Just because you think one vector might work or isn’t sufficiently blocked doesn’t constitute a reason to oppose measures against other vectors.



School staff should take care of bullying at school. At my schools, we took that obligation extremely seriously. But we couldn’t stop cyberbullying. That’s why separate measures are needed for that vector.

Sometime, kids are being bullied from kids (or even adults) that are from a different community than school. The wonder of internet brings everyone together from far away. It has also brought bully, harassment, grooming, etc. from far away as well. If I remember correctly, there were couple of girls joined ISIS due to online grooming.

 

[Nazgutek]

anti-harassment laws, and limited restraining orders for people in school that ensure bullies and their victims aren't in the same classrooms and don't communicate with each other. Online communication would make it even easier to prove that harassment is happening, since its all documented.

So in other words, we can do something completely independently of limiting the communication channels that someone could receive bullying via. Cool. Neither precludes or insists upon the other being implemented.

by being bullied anywhere else. This is like instead of banning kids buying alcohol, you ban kids from entering a select few chains of grocery stores that sell alcohol, but still allowing them to go to smaller grocery stores and to buy alcohol there.
Kids will just instead be bullied on different websites, through text, at school, at social events, at home, etc.

Can you spot the difference between these two situations:
1) teen could buy alcohol at big stores and small stores.
2) teen could buy alcohol at small stores.

When you go to the same place as your bully nearly every single day of the week, limiting social media doesn't actually limit anything.

Can you spot the difference between these two daily routines:
1) Bullied in person at school over seven hours, then bullied remotely online over three hours.
2) Bullied in person at school over seven hours.

Evidently our understandings of the word 'limit' are incompatible.

 

[GohanIYIan]

If a federal regulator goes to audit your financial records to see whether you made a transaction with a sanctioned party, do you think they will look at your process documentation and say "Hey, looks legit. No problems for me."?

Or do you think they will ask for your transaction records and verify that you aren't doing business with a sanctioned party?

I think it's clearly context dependent. If you're operating a bank taking large deposits, there are detailed know-your-customer rules and you probably do need detailed records and might be audited. If you're operating a gas station that sells cigarettes, no one if going to audit your records and demand you produce copies of everyone's IDs.

There's different levels of rigor in trying to enforce these laws, and that's both because the stakes are different and the trade-offs are different. We care a lot about preventing money laundering, and the number of people making large, suspicious deposits is quite small, so the average person won't care if the paperwork in that scenario is pretty onerous. An effort to make it nearly impossible for a teenager to get ahold of a cigarette would have to be incredibly draconian and annoying to lots of people.

There's no actual reason a social media age limit would have to be more like the banking model than the cigarettes model. A new law addressing social media could say literally anything about what is and is not subject to audit and what records are or are not necessary to maintain.

 

[poochyena]

Restraining orders in school is not a serious suggestion. Getting a restraining order requires significant money, time, and sophistication; exceedingly few parents have all three of these things. In my 15 years as a school attorney, I never encountered a situation in which a student obtained a restraining order against another student.

Sounds like a much more worthwhile area of law to reform, rather than social media bans.

We’ve got rules against bullying kids at school. Kids can be severely disciplined for bullying kids at or on the way to or from school. It’s appropriate to take measures to fight all vectors of bullying. Just because you think one vector might work or isn’t sufficiently blocked doesn’t constitute a reason to oppose measures against other vectors.

A vector being ineffective at stopping negative outcomes and produces a huge amount negative fallout is a good reason to be against the change. Little evidence this helps anyone, and lots of evidence it harms.

Can you spot the difference between these two situations:
1) teen could buy alcohol at big stores and small stores.
2) teen could buy alcohol at small stores.

Yea, the store who make money from teens buying alcohol. The smaller players are loving the big guys being banned. They gonna make a lot more money from this.

Can you spot the difference between these two daily routines:
1) Bullied in person at school over seven hours, then bullied remotely online over three hours.
2) Bullied in person at school over seven hours.

yea, using social media is a choice, while school isn't. You can't just ignore a bully in school like you can online.

 

[[Ars]Hellheart]

Can you spot the difference between these two daily routines:
1) Bullied in person at school over seven hours, then bullied remotely online over three hours.
2) Bullied in person at school over seven hours.

Evidently our understandings of the word 'limit' are incompatible.

yea, using social media is a choice, while school isn't. You can't just ignore a bully in school like you can online.

Everything else notwithstanding, these two are substantially different. And a lot of the alternative bullying methods you proposed are either direct (limited, can be blocked or retaliated against) or location-based (and can thus be isolated, compartmentalized, and avoided).

A child that is bullied at school can have a home life where they don't feel bullied. Friend groups that are separate. They can pretend to, or actually be, someone totally different in different spheres. Social media squishes that together in a way that is very unavoidably public, but also very difficult to punish in a way that direct harassment is not. It's not that people are suddenly paying attention to or caring about bullying because they can see it; a huge part of the problem for the victim is the very fact that it is more visible.

This is very particularly a social media issue: the intensely and overwhelmingly public nature of posts is nothing like forums, websites, or any more limited form of social interaction.

 

[SnoopCatt]

such as? What exactly is the argument for it and what is the criteria?

Exposure to bullying and self-harm are the two that have been cited most frequently.

 

[SnoopCatt]

My issue isn't about the children. It is about having to trust these companies with my SPI in verifying my age with an exact and specific date. I admit that there are sites like Facebook where I have a partial date (month/day) input as I like getting the birthday messages. But there are others that have a birth date field that is not required that I have nothing entered. I don't want to be required to share this SPI with vendors that already are showing they are not the best at protecting their 'customers' interests.

Age verification is something that has been left up the platforms to figure out for the time being. Some of them are using face scanning to guess your age.
The eSafety Commissioner has formally partnered with DG CNECT (EU) and OfCom (UK) to set up a technical working group on age assurance and interoperability. I'm hopeful that they will come up with something where any personal information is held by a trusted third party and not by the platforms themselves.

 

[wrylachlan]

alcohol and guns are deadly to children, social media isn't.

That’s not correct. Social media has been directly linked to increases in suicidality in teens. Is it deadly for all children? No. But neither is alcohol or guns or me and my friends growing up wouldn’t be here because we all drank in high school and a number of us hunted.

So I think social media easily clears the bar of harm necessary for society to want to limit kids ability to use it.