Probably going to illicit some bad responses, but hopefully here, people might see what I am trying to say.
While I am annoyed a "ban" has to come into play for social media, it seems to be the only thing we can do in the short term, but as a person in the IT industry, I do wonder if we are missing doing an RCA on the issue.
Even as an adult with a child, I can't see us ever letting our kid actually use social media till they understand it, and that comes down to parenting properly, teaching them the right way, and letting them know of the dangers.
However, I see the root cause as these are commercial platforms which enable the person with more money to throw their version of events at all of us, not just kids and adults. I can see that it isn't just the kids we have to worry about, but we have adults in high places who will believe the same thing, and while we worry about the children in this, there are adults who could do serious damage to themselves and others, and people would look the other way.
These days, people need to have different ways to talk to each other. Yes, I know we used to have letters, then telegrams, then everything evolves, but live changes, and information is so much more freely available. Locking people out of good information means that you are essentially stopping them from seeing the wider picture. Moving closer to sensorship.
For me, its frustrating that this the direction we are going in, but it doesn't actually solve the issue. It just passes it along to later on, further time away, for it to then cause more damage later on. How many times have we as IT people left something and had to then deal with the issues later on.
Social media is just that, it isn't good. I try to stay away from it, but in a way it is the only way I do get updates on what happens to my friends, globally. The world is changing, and we need to adapt, but we need to put the right guardrails in the right place.
Personally, I think the blanket ban is not the right thing to do, but in the short term, we have ended up being the only option we can do, and that isn't good. That is why for me, a ban isn't good. It isn't because I don't think it will help, I just believe it doesn't solve the problem itself.
> I can't see us ever letting our kid actually use social media till they understand it
The social pressure to get on those platforms grows rapidly, well before they are 16. It starts with group chats, and who wants to be left out, where kids start posting funny things from tiktok or whatever, and then it's game over.
We kept ours a bit tight: first phone at 12, no internet, but everyone in the vicinity had whatsapp. Not much later we succumbed. Recently, my daughter told me she felt isolated, because the other kids in her class had access to much more. And that's 12 years ago. I cannot image the current levels of pressure.
Regulation is the only way. Meta, ByteDance, etc. are only moving forward with ever more addictive patterns. And it's killing society.
Edit: I recently was in a conversation with young parents, and one of them said: I do hope there's a ban soon.
Exactly this, the pressure from everyone, not just the kids themselves, is a lot. We are in a digital world right now, and without "digital access", you become part of the crowd that can get bullied for not being up to date. It is a terrible place to be, and you get torn between the two ends of the scale.
I think there is such an issue with closed platforms as well on top of it all. I wouldn't want my kid on WhatsApp being perfectly honestly, I can't really control to a level where I feel that they would be safe on that platform. While all the adults in her life are on there, means we are limited to the odd platform here and there.
I have an Apple device for her, I have used Apple Configurator and profiles to properly lock down what they can do on the device. Even then its timed and monitored, but then we hit the issue. Half the family are Apple, half the family are Android, and same with her friends too. The only way we have been able to get some semblance of chat is Google Meets, but even then messaging doesn't always work, and she is left with SMS, which for some of the other kids, they don't have a SIM in their device (and probably for good reason). It means that keeping the links up between her and everyone is just like being in an IT support department! But at least I know she isn't going to get to anything bad.
Even at school you hear what the other kids have seen, to a point where the school had to pull in Safegarding because one of their kids basically had unfettered access to YouTube, and started telling the class everything.
The ban needs to happen, because we have set ourselves up for this globally, without the right pressure to the right places, to the platforms themselves, the world has to take other actions, and the pressure continues.
It's always the way that we always wish for the things we can't have, as children I remember my own meltdowns back in the day, over Lego of all things!
It isn't good, at all.
Again, I didn't want my post to say I disagree, its just, there needs to be more done, and this is just a plaster over the issue.. it will help, but over time it will become less and less effective :(
100% agreed that at least short term, we should ban it for children.
But beyond..? If we believe in freedom of speech, what's the angle? How is it different from an awful tabloid pushing its own warped reality on us? Colorful "newspapers" with topless models and stories about a stoned postman were also ragebait and dopamine hacking, only offline. I don't like them, but then some time around 18th century we concluded we let almost everyone say almost anything, to make sure no tyrant can shut down ideas singlehandedly.
IMHO the fundamental issue is a failure of education. We're in a position where people (adults) are literally too stupid to tell how bad, deceitful and dangerous this stuff can be. We should teach people properly, then let them read whatever.
Banning cigarettes is one thing, banning (awful but bon-criminal) free speech feels off.
> Even as an adult with a child, I can't see us ever letting our kid actually use social media till they understand it, and that comes down to parenting properly, teaching them the right way, and letting them know of the dangers
Just answering to this part explicitly: Proper parenting is not doable in a lot of modern societies. There are so many children being neglected by their parents. So we'd have to go for a mix of parenting and regulating.
I agree, it needs to be in collaboration though. We can't rely just on one side to do all the work. It has to be a very good balance otherwise it will feel like we are pushing to hard, or being turned into a nanny state.
I agree, it isn't possible to keep up these days on everything. I know for myself, I have my kid with a phone, but I also happen to use Apple Configurator and provide a massively locked down platform for her. It contains enough for her to call us, emergency contacts, a few very selected games, and fully restricted, and monitored. But this I know is only because I am in the IT world, and do this sort of stuff generally. For general parent #1, they will always struggle, so need the support.
Either way, I do agree with you, it needs a mix, a balance, but we also need to use that regulation to hit the source, not plaster over it!
I agree with you on a few key points. Social media is structurally harmful, it amplifies those with money and reach, and good parenting and education are important. Where I disagree is in thinking that “good parents” and awareness are enough; you sound like you’re doing the right thing for your own kids, but that’s the exception, not the norm, and many parents are themselves oblivious to how these products work, so legal guardrails are needed in the same way we regulate alcohol or cigarettes.
If anything, a 16+ cutoff is still quite conservative. These platforms deliberately target developing reward systems and social comparison in the brain, and there is growing evidence (summarized well in the book “The Anxious Generation”) that the risk profile changes meaningfully only in the late teens, so pushing first exposure from 11–13 to 16 gives kids a better chance of resisting those algorithms.
Banning under‑16s from highly optimised, social feeds is also not the same as stopping them from talking to each other; you can still have calls, SMS, WhatsApp, group chats, email and offline social life. In my own case I’ve been social‑media‑free for about four years while still talking to friends and family regularly through these channels.
As someone who grew up all over the world and never stayed in one country for more than five years, I’m 35 and still in touch with close friends around the world purely through direct communication, which has also made it obvious how distorted social media’s notion of “friends” is. Once you leave, you quickly see who actually reciprocates effort instead of passively consuming a curated feed of your life.
You are right that bans don’t fix the deeper structural issues of commercial platforms or information asymmetries, but that’s not an argument against shielding children while we work on those deeper problems. In practice, a simple, blanket rule is often the only thing enforceable at scale that doesn’t depend on every parent being highly technically and psychologically literate.
In that sense, an under‑16 ban is not perfect and does not “solve the problem itself,” but it is still the right move compared to the current situation of throwing undeveloped brains into systems explicitly tuned to hijack their focus. The consequences of which we are only beginning to see now... the issue is tremendous.
> Locking people out of good information means that you are essentially stopping them from seeing the wider picture.
Good information is impossible to define, not least because it's different for every person. There is no single wider picture, certainly not one any two people could agree on and certain not one that can be legislated.
> Moving closer to sensorship.
Censorship for children is an absolute and unabated good. We should be censoring what children can see. We already do in other forms of media and communications.
> For me, its frustrating that this the direction we are going in, but it doesn't actually solve the issue. It just passes it along to later on, further time away, for it to then cause more damage later on.
No, unfettered access to obscene, extreme, & traumatising information, and unfiltered communication with a globe's worth of predators, is orders of magnitude more damaging to children than to adults. Delayed access until both biological and psychological processes mature dramatically reduces overall harm and introduces no new harm.
Fair point on the good information; it is always relative to the person.
What I do want to say is that with the unfettered access side, I completely agree with this too. Right now, because of what has happened, it is the only real option we do have, and it does mean that the wrong things get caught in the collateral. Its frustrating when it does, but if its the right thing to do, then it should be. My point was that while we are putting effort into ensuring people are safe, we need to also put effort into sorting the root cause of the problem too, we can't just ignore it. It will fester and continue, so that when that access is lifted because "they are old enough" then whats stopping it happening then, when they are older.
Just wanted to say I don't disagree with what is happening, I just wish there was more work to help with the root of the problem, to start to actually deal with it further down the rabbit hole.
As we have seen with adult verification too, its a cat and mouse game, and right now, the mice are winning.
I do agree that any ban is of limited future utility if kids go from a safe kiddie pool into deep waters that are lethal for a majority of the population.
Still, dismissing a ban is throwing the baby out with the bath water. (I couldn't help myself with the water analogies. Sorry)
Free speech is the cornerstone of our ability to debate and understand the shape of reality. It remains the best way forward. The issue is that the modern attacks on the market place of ideas are designed to circumvent our intuitions and safeguards.
Today control is achieved by overwhelming the network and users. An Abundance of privately generated content instead of central regulation and restriction of content.
However the threat is the same- reducing the ability for humans to engage in fair debate.
If you want a better environment for kids to be able to transition to, we need to triage.
1) Ensure an even playing field. This means regulation, which by nature will be censorial, as well as the creation of independently funded news and information bodies.
2) Transparency and Data from tech firms. When we find out a substance is harmful, and have the data to prove it, we make rules to mitigate those harms.
3) Valuing informational health and hygene. Junk food used to be dominant globally, and today we joke about avocado toast and the latest health food fad. People shifted consumption habits when costs and benefits were made clear.
Social media are detrimental for a young human being under development. A child's brain works in no way the same as our adult brains, so we cannot apply the same caring logic as you would with adults. I see this in the same category as cigarettes, drugs and alcohol.
Until you are old enough and we can assume (or hope) there is mental capacity to properly contextualize life choices and being able take a stance for / against these things, a ban is appropriate.
I think this will be bad for the cybersecurity industry. I cut my teeth by hanging around on IRC networks back in the day. That said, I doubt these will end up being regulated due to their popularity and antiquity.
> It would also look at whether more robust age checks could be implemented by social media firms, which could be forced to remove or limit features "which drive compulsive use of social media".
Why not some version of this from social media companies?
Revert the service back to the early days for under-16 (or whatever) accounts where they connect with friends and only see post from them in chronological order without all the other outside content injection. A very pared down limited feature version so the kids still have online interaction minus the content up for debate on its harmfulness. And if the companies did it on their own they could use that to look like they care; be the "good guys". The risk is everyone else wanting the same -- better, imo -- experience. In which they tell the adults to kick rocks and everyone gets on with life.
Social media bans only exist for governments to strangle the anonymous internet. Politicians are very sensitive to online criticism. A German politician tried to have a commentor arrested for for saying they were fat.
Given that, according to the ban proponents own words, social media algorithms are addictive as hell and impossible to resist, what do they think it will happen to those children after 16?
Do you really believe that they will magically be "immune"? Even adults are addicted to social media, and it didn't even exist back when they were teens.
> "The studies show that Meta has obtained extensive evidence, from many different kinds of research, that its products facilitate and enable vast direct harms to young people (e.g., cyberbullying, unwanted sexual contact) and that its products are likely harming users’ mental health, particularly for adolescent girls, particularly via harmful social comparisons, promotion of eating disorders, body-image problems, and increased depression."
Wrong. Meta has years of very well documented practices that are fundamentally detrimental to society when not clearly illegal.
Explain why politicians, which have not acted enough to avoid that, now should not act to limit the issue.
This line of thinking is detrimental and only defends the concentration of wealth that the online platform came to represent.
You should be the one doing some more research, I reckon.
If they had instead gone on a "porn sites that would obey the ID law need to flag themselves via this system and ISPs/phone providers should block them by default and only the account holder can enable it", then they would actually have some leverage over mindgeek (or whoever), and would be able to remove that subset.
But instead people in the UK now either use a vpn to bypass it and thus will also bypass this new law, or go to far dodgier sites which ignore the requirements that the commercial ones follow, driving teenage boys (and adult men) into the arms of sites with incest, bestiality, snuff etc, rather than this generation's equivelent of playboy.
As far as I know, consumption of "socially-undesirable" pornography is correlated with a reduction in the corresponding acts themselves. Should we presume you're anti-depiction then, but pro actus reus?
They aren't, they're choosing bouncing boobs. The only sites left to them are the ones that were already illegal. Or a VPN service, which means the UK has no voice in the mainstream sites.
You turn people off the professional sites which can be held accountable and they end up on the dark side of the internet.
America saw the same thing when the puritans banned alcohol last century, people ran right into the arms of organised crime.
I'm fairly agnostic to the headline question of whether social media should be banned for under 16s. The part that seems interesting to me is whether this will entail linking online activity to real world identity for the rest of us. It doesn't have to, but in practice I guess that's probably what'll happen. Unfortunately all the debate is "but freedom of speech" vs "but think of the kids" vs, and nobody will be lobbying for a better (or less worse) implementation.
If social media means FB, TikTok, Instagram then I'm all for it. Don't start smoking until you are an adult, and by then, perhaps you'll have a bit of reason.
This is sure to be a very constructive thread, but let me sum up the dissonance and solution I think will work.
IT people are rightly afraid this will be used to create Draconian requirements.
Parents are rightly afraid social media is having extreme negative effects on children (and society).
Banning social media for 16 is the right way to go, and enforcement should be put on the parents / schools. Not the tech platforms beyond a cursory glance.
The goal should be to get >80% of kids off social media + a campaign to clarify the other 20% is a bunch of addicted losers getting played by an algorithm.
That's it. By making it the law you make it the norm. Dutch School policies banning phones have been overwhelmingly successful when you ask children and parents. They like having lunch breaks again where nobody is on their phone.
Delusions about perfect 100% coverage by some technical solution that boils down to mass surveillance / authorized users is just idiots saying idiot things.
All of this would be easier if we just called Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and all the others by a more correct name: “Sales-acceleration platforms” and it's mode of operation is "inducing emotional instability in consumers".
“Sales-acceleration platforms” should be regulated to protect consumers, no? Also, why do children need to be on “Sales-acceleration platforms”?
It should be that when you sign up with an ISP AND have children, you should be required by law to install software to monitor and track your children's usage. It needs to be done at this level, as this then stops the Proxy, VPN argument as well.
This is both a technical and an educational problem that needs to be solved. The technology for network monitoring needs to be easier for parents to install, with all 18+ content blocked by default, etc. Companies have software installed that tracks everything you do—every piece of software you install (or can't install if the system is locked down). We need this level of technology available at home.
Now, if Microsoft, Google, etc all got together, backed by the government, they could build this in months, and so the cost would be low and shared.
All mobile phone contracts block access to 18+ content. If a child has a mobile phone, then yes, block access to social networks.
It could be a plug-in device that connects between your router OR an ISP-level feature that, when you first join, asks whether there are children in the house. If you say no and there are, then that's breaking the law.
When you first install it, a well-designed interface would prompt you to select your children's ages and add their devices (laptops, iPads, etc.). You install the client software locally, link everything up, and the whole system tracks and monitors usage. Problem solved.
If children go to friends' houses, there should be a way for them to join as guests so parents can still see everything.
If children go to grandparents' houses or friends of friends, then either you need to install this box to manage access, or there's no Wi-Fi. They'd have to use their mobile data.
What I don't agree with is that childless people have to comply. I don't know any children, and all the ones I did have have grown up now. Fundamentally, I do think that we need to find a better way to stop social media bullying, the fact that beheading or gore videos are so easily accessible - I think that's worse than any "normal" porn!
Children cannot drink or smoke. It's not like you can argue against this; parents have a responsibility to stop that from happening. It's no different; in fact, it's worse.
Now, of course, once kids get to 14+, they will find a way. Since the start of history, we've all gone through that, and nothing any government does is going to stop children from pushing boundaries, learning, and experimenting.
My concern is that Gov will go down a route where every website you sign up to requires AgeID. It will be impossible to have Anon accounts anywhere. Sites will love it as more advertising and tracking for everyone. I stopped posting on social networks, as the second you say anything slightly different from someone else, the trolls come out and attack. I simply could not be bothered, and so deleted all social networks.
Waiting now for the HN trolls to attack - don't worry, I simply cannot be bothered to respond :)
Doing their level best to piss off the entire electorate with additional bureaucracy. Makes zero sense unless they’re actually trying to lose the next election.
I opened Snapchat for 5 mins in Australia (on a trip there) and now it’s demanding I prove my age.
What is it about this 16 y/o cutoff that seems to be the focus everywhere? Why not 18?
It almost seems like this will make SM attractive by making it a kind of forbidden fruit and/or a social standing status indicator for impressionable, malleable minded, underdeveloped minds of teens seeking to feel like adults.
In other words, if I didn’t know any better, I would have guessed that it might actually be the likes of Facebook pushing these controls internationally (not the least because they seem so coordinated all across the planet) in order to manipulate target users into coveting having a fb/SM account again.
Tell me you think Facebook, the same Facebook that was caught running uncontrolled and illegal psychological manipulation testing on its users, would not do such a thing!
I agree with you that this would create a forbidden fruit, and a combination of social media becoming more desirable to under-16yo and teenagers binging social media as soon as they become 16. But the solution to that is to push the age limit down, not up. 14 or 12 would be much more reasonable ages. That gives parents a clear cutoff when their kids have to be ready for social media, and prevents bans in the phase where teens are most rebellious
This was an argument that was used to not ban smoking for kids in the UK back in the day. From the parliment debate...
> [banning smoking would] afford a direct encouragement to children to smoke. Most boys of a tender age who might be seen smoking in public places did so, not because of any attachment to tobacco, but because they considered it a practice in advance of their years, and something moreover which their elders told them not to do, affording them, therefore, the added pleasure of disobedience which was so dear to boys of their age.
You think Meta secretly wanted to remove 4.7m Australian users while saying:
> "We call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivising all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age-appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans,"
because ultimately they think it will attract more users to their platforms?
> What is it about this 16 y/o cutoff that seems to be the focus everywhere? Why not 18?
Some studies have found that puberty is the peak problematic age for people to be on social media and 16 is the rough point by which mostly this is finished. There is a book, "The Anxious Generation" that covers this pretty well.
In the UK, 16 is the age of consent for medical treatments, driving licenses, joining the armed forces, etc, so it's generally the age when a child can lawfully make many of their own decisions.
You need to be 15 years and 9 months to apply for a provisional driving licence, but 17 to drive a car, in most cases, though I think there's an exception for some disabled people. You need to be 13 to give consent for processing of personal data. The age of criminal responsibility is 10 in England and Wales, but higher in Scotland, I think. It used to be 16 for getting married, with parents' consent (or without, in Scotland), but I think that's been raised. You can leave school on the last Friday of June in the school year (Sep-Aug) in which you turn 16, or something like that. There are lots of different age limits. I think the real answer to "Why 16?" is basically "Why not?".
Probably going to illicit some bad responses, but hopefully here, people might see what I am trying to say.
While I am annoyed a "ban" has to come into play for social media, it seems to be the only thing we can do in the short term, but as a person in the IT industry, I do wonder if we are missing doing an RCA on the issue.
Even as an adult with a child, I can't see us ever letting our kid actually use social media till they understand it, and that comes down to parenting properly, teaching them the right way, and letting them know of the dangers.
However, I see the root cause as these are commercial platforms which enable the person with more money to throw their version of events at all of us, not just kids and adults. I can see that it isn't just the kids we have to worry about, but we have adults in high places who will believe the same thing, and while we worry about the children in this, there are adults who could do serious damage to themselves and others, and people would look the other way.
These days, people need to have different ways to talk to each other. Yes, I know we used to have letters, then telegrams, then everything evolves, but live changes, and information is so much more freely available. Locking people out of good information means that you are essentially stopping them from seeing the wider picture. Moving closer to sensorship.
For me, its frustrating that this the direction we are going in, but it doesn't actually solve the issue. It just passes it along to later on, further time away, for it to then cause more damage later on. How many times have we as IT people left something and had to then deal with the issues later on.
Social media is just that, it isn't good. I try to stay away from it, but in a way it is the only way I do get updates on what happens to my friends, globally. The world is changing, and we need to adapt, but we need to put the right guardrails in the right place.
Personally, I think the blanket ban is not the right thing to do, but in the short term, we have ended up being the only option we can do, and that isn't good. That is why for me, a ban isn't good. It isn't because I don't think it will help, I just believe it doesn't solve the problem itself.
> I can't see us ever letting our kid actually use social media till they understand it
The social pressure to get on those platforms grows rapidly, well before they are 16. It starts with group chats, and who wants to be left out, where kids start posting funny things from tiktok or whatever, and then it's game over.
We kept ours a bit tight: first phone at 12, no internet, but everyone in the vicinity had whatsapp. Not much later we succumbed. Recently, my daughter told me she felt isolated, because the other kids in her class had access to much more. And that's 12 years ago. I cannot image the current levels of pressure.
Regulation is the only way. Meta, ByteDance, etc. are only moving forward with ever more addictive patterns. And it's killing society.
Edit: I recently was in a conversation with young parents, and one of them said: I do hope there's a ban soon.
Exactly this, the pressure from everyone, not just the kids themselves, is a lot. We are in a digital world right now, and without "digital access", you become part of the crowd that can get bullied for not being up to date. It is a terrible place to be, and you get torn between the two ends of the scale.
I think there is such an issue with closed platforms as well on top of it all. I wouldn't want my kid on WhatsApp being perfectly honestly, I can't really control to a level where I feel that they would be safe on that platform. While all the adults in her life are on there, means we are limited to the odd platform here and there.
I have an Apple device for her, I have used Apple Configurator and profiles to properly lock down what they can do on the device. Even then its timed and monitored, but then we hit the issue. Half the family are Apple, half the family are Android, and same with her friends too. The only way we have been able to get some semblance of chat is Google Meets, but even then messaging doesn't always work, and she is left with SMS, which for some of the other kids, they don't have a SIM in their device (and probably for good reason). It means that keeping the links up between her and everyone is just like being in an IT support department! But at least I know she isn't going to get to anything bad.
Even at school you hear what the other kids have seen, to a point where the school had to pull in Safegarding because one of their kids basically had unfettered access to YouTube, and started telling the class everything.
The ban needs to happen, because we have set ourselves up for this globally, without the right pressure to the right places, to the platforms themselves, the world has to take other actions, and the pressure continues.
It's always the way that we always wish for the things we can't have, as children I remember my own meltdowns back in the day, over Lego of all things!
It isn't good, at all.
Again, I didn't want my post to say I disagree, its just, there needs to be more done, and this is just a plaster over the issue.. it will help, but over time it will become less and less effective :(
100% agreed that at least short term, we should ban it for children.
But beyond..? If we believe in freedom of speech, what's the angle? How is it different from an awful tabloid pushing its own warped reality on us? Colorful "newspapers" with topless models and stories about a stoned postman were also ragebait and dopamine hacking, only offline. I don't like them, but then some time around 18th century we concluded we let almost everyone say almost anything, to make sure no tyrant can shut down ideas singlehandedly.
IMHO the fundamental issue is a failure of education. We're in a position where people (adults) are literally too stupid to tell how bad, deceitful and dangerous this stuff can be. We should teach people properly, then let them read whatever.
Banning cigarettes is one thing, banning (awful but bon-criminal) free speech feels off.
> Even as an adult with a child, I can't see us ever letting our kid actually use social media till they understand it, and that comes down to parenting properly, teaching them the right way, and letting them know of the dangers
Just answering to this part explicitly: Proper parenting is not doable in a lot of modern societies. There are so many children being neglected by their parents. So we'd have to go for a mix of parenting and regulating.
I agree, it needs to be in collaboration though. We can't rely just on one side to do all the work. It has to be a very good balance otherwise it will feel like we are pushing to hard, or being turned into a nanny state.
I agree, it isn't possible to keep up these days on everything. I know for myself, I have my kid with a phone, but I also happen to use Apple Configurator and provide a massively locked down platform for her. It contains enough for her to call us, emergency contacts, a few very selected games, and fully restricted, and monitored. But this I know is only because I am in the IT world, and do this sort of stuff generally. For general parent #1, they will always struggle, so need the support.
Either way, I do agree with you, it needs a mix, a balance, but we also need to use that regulation to hit the source, not plaster over it!
I agree with you on a few key points. Social media is structurally harmful, it amplifies those with money and reach, and good parenting and education are important. Where I disagree is in thinking that “good parents” and awareness are enough; you sound like you’re doing the right thing for your own kids, but that’s the exception, not the norm, and many parents are themselves oblivious to how these products work, so legal guardrails are needed in the same way we regulate alcohol or cigarettes.
If anything, a 16+ cutoff is still quite conservative. These platforms deliberately target developing reward systems and social comparison in the brain, and there is growing evidence (summarized well in the book “The Anxious Generation”) that the risk profile changes meaningfully only in the late teens, so pushing first exposure from 11–13 to 16 gives kids a better chance of resisting those algorithms.
Banning under‑16s from highly optimised, social feeds is also not the same as stopping them from talking to each other; you can still have calls, SMS, WhatsApp, group chats, email and offline social life. In my own case I’ve been social‑media‑free for about four years while still talking to friends and family regularly through these channels.
As someone who grew up all over the world and never stayed in one country for more than five years, I’m 35 and still in touch with close friends around the world purely through direct communication, which has also made it obvious how distorted social media’s notion of “friends” is. Once you leave, you quickly see who actually reciprocates effort instead of passively consuming a curated feed of your life.
You are right that bans don’t fix the deeper structural issues of commercial platforms or information asymmetries, but that’s not an argument against shielding children while we work on those deeper problems. In practice, a simple, blanket rule is often the only thing enforceable at scale that doesn’t depend on every parent being highly technically and psychologically literate.
In that sense, an under‑16 ban is not perfect and does not “solve the problem itself,” but it is still the right move compared to the current situation of throwing undeveloped brains into systems explicitly tuned to hijack their focus. The consequences of which we are only beginning to see now... the issue is tremendous.
> Locking people out of good information means that you are essentially stopping them from seeing the wider picture.
Good information is impossible to define, not least because it's different for every person. There is no single wider picture, certainly not one any two people could agree on and certain not one that can be legislated.
> Moving closer to sensorship.
Censorship for children is an absolute and unabated good. We should be censoring what children can see. We already do in other forms of media and communications.
> For me, its frustrating that this the direction we are going in, but it doesn't actually solve the issue. It just passes it along to later on, further time away, for it to then cause more damage later on.
No, unfettered access to obscene, extreme, & traumatising information, and unfiltered communication with a globe's worth of predators, is orders of magnitude more damaging to children than to adults. Delayed access until both biological and psychological processes mature dramatically reduces overall harm and introduces no new harm.
Fair point on the good information; it is always relative to the person.
What I do want to say is that with the unfettered access side, I completely agree with this too. Right now, because of what has happened, it is the only real option we do have, and it does mean that the wrong things get caught in the collateral. Its frustrating when it does, but if its the right thing to do, then it should be. My point was that while we are putting effort into ensuring people are safe, we need to also put effort into sorting the root cause of the problem too, we can't just ignore it. It will fester and continue, so that when that access is lifted because "they are old enough" then whats stopping it happening then, when they are older.
Just wanted to say I don't disagree with what is happening, I just wish there was more work to help with the root of the problem, to start to actually deal with it further down the rabbit hole.
As we have seen with adult verification too, its a cat and mouse game, and right now, the mice are winning.
I do agree that any ban is of limited future utility if kids go from a safe kiddie pool into deep waters that are lethal for a majority of the population.
Still, dismissing a ban is throwing the baby out with the bath water. (I couldn't help myself with the water analogies. Sorry)
Free speech is the cornerstone of our ability to debate and understand the shape of reality. It remains the best way forward. The issue is that the modern attacks on the market place of ideas are designed to circumvent our intuitions and safeguards.
Today control is achieved by overwhelming the network and users. An Abundance of privately generated content instead of central regulation and restriction of content.
However the threat is the same- reducing the ability for humans to engage in fair debate.
If you want a better environment for kids to be able to transition to, we need to triage.
1) Ensure an even playing field. This means regulation, which by nature will be censorial, as well as the creation of independently funded news and information bodies.
2) Transparency and Data from tech firms. When we find out a substance is harmful, and have the data to prove it, we make rules to mitigate those harms.
3) Valuing informational health and hygene. Junk food used to be dominant globally, and today we joke about avocado toast and the latest health food fad. People shifted consumption habits when costs and benefits were made clear.
Social media are detrimental for a young human being under development. A child's brain works in no way the same as our adult brains, so we cannot apply the same caring logic as you would with adults. I see this in the same category as cigarettes, drugs and alcohol.
Until you are old enough and we can assume (or hope) there is mental capacity to properly contextualize life choices and being able take a stance for / against these things, a ban is appropriate.
Please cite reliable studies rather than just-so stories.
I think this will be bad for the cybersecurity industry. I cut my teeth by hanging around on IRC networks back in the day. That said, I doubt these will end up being regulated due to their popularity and antiquity.
> It would also look at whether more robust age checks could be implemented by social media firms, which could be forced to remove or limit features "which drive compulsive use of social media".
Why not some version of this from social media companies?
Revert the service back to the early days for under-16 (or whatever) accounts where they connect with friends and only see post from them in chronological order without all the other outside content injection. A very pared down limited feature version so the kids still have online interaction minus the content up for debate on its harmfulness. And if the companies did it on their own they could use that to look like they care; be the "good guys". The risk is everyone else wanting the same -- better, imo -- experience. In which they tell the adults to kick rocks and everyone gets on with life.
Social media bans only exist for governments to strangle the anonymous internet. Politicians are very sensitive to online criticism. A German politician tried to have a commentor arrested for for saying they were fat.
It was cleared up when the commenter explained they meant to spell it phat.
Also let's not forget about Andy Grotes Pimmelgate
Given that, according to the ban proponents own words, social media algorithms are addictive as hell and impossible to resist, what do they think it will happen to those children after 16?
Do you really believe that they will magically be "immune"? Even adults are addicted to social media, and it didn't even exist back when they were teens.
Zero science, zero research, just politicians restricting citizens rights.
> "The studies show that Meta has obtained extensive evidence, from many different kinds of research, that its products facilitate and enable vast direct harms to young people (e.g., cyberbullying, unwanted sexual contact) and that its products are likely harming users’ mental health, particularly for adolescent girls, particularly via harmful social comparisons, promotion of eating disorders, body-image problems, and increased depression."
https://metasinternalresearch.org/#block-2e15def2e67a80c0928...
At least read Haidt.
Wrong. Meta has years of very well documented practices that are fundamentally detrimental to society when not clearly illegal. Explain why politicians, which have not acted enough to avoid that, now should not act to limit the issue. This line of thinking is detrimental and only defends the concentration of wealth that the online platform came to represent. You should be the one doing some more research, I reckon.
The practices may be well documented but the studies are... flimsy. Please send meta analysis for my consumption.
"Protecting the children"
Not only did you not read the article, you didn’t even read the headline.
Please don't break the rules of posting on HN. You should ensure you understand them to post here.
Why is American social media still legal outside of America at all?
As a parent of early-teen children I don't want a ban, I want better tools to supervise and educate my kids about using SM safely.
- Searchable history of all content that has been viewed on the app
- Age-based content/functionality restrictions, with sensible defaults
- SM account DOB set from device DOB, with no override
- Parental controls implemented consistently across all apps
- Free comprehensive public education programme for parents about using SM safety
Some of this already exists, but not widely and is rarely done well.
Will they consult any of the under-16s they're targeting? Or just those who "know what's best"
Should we consult kids if they would like to drink, smoke and gamble?
9 out of 10 crack addicts say its very moreish
Do we consult toddlers for their opinion about food?
Well, yes? At least, I've never force-fed a toddler.
You feed toddlers long enough, something like this happens.
Please don't gavage children. That's (presumably) more psychologically damaging than social media.
You cant just eat the chips and leave the fish.
No ice cream till you eat some more of your greens.
More "no Facebook until you've done your homework" than "the government is going to ban ice cream and that's a good thing", though.
Should they consult youngsters on cigs as well?
Porn block ineffective at capturing enough personal data. UK considers how it can build its own great firewall.
The UK has had a great firewall for decades - try going to a kiddie porn site or a torrent site and you will be unable to connect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...
Very unimpressive compared to China. Typical, the UK lagging behind on tech.
It’s just DNS though isn’t it. Trivial to bypass, some ISPs don’t even bother.
What amused me is shortly after cutting the UK off from pornhub etc, the UK then tried to ban porn sites from porn with strangling -- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyk3qzq7k7o
If they had instead gone on a "porn sites that would obey the ID law need to flag themselves via this system and ISPs/phone providers should block them by default and only the account holder can enable it", then they would actually have some leverage over mindgeek (or whoever), and would be able to remove that subset.
But instead people in the UK now either use a vpn to bypass it and thus will also bypass this new law, or go to far dodgier sites which ignore the requirements that the commercial ones follow, driving teenage boys (and adult men) into the arms of sites with incest, bestiality, snuff etc, rather than this generation's equivelent of playboy.
Or they could consciously choose to not bypass the restrictions and to not consume pornography.
If they are seeking out vile material like incest, animal rape and sexualised murder then the blame lays entirely on them, not the government.
I mean what is even your point? Male depravity is unavoidable, and men are mindless ejaculators with no free will to curb abnormal sexual behaviours?
As far as I know, consumption of "socially-undesirable" pornography is correlated with a reduction in the corresponding acts themselves. Should we presume you're anti-depiction then, but pro actus reus?
They aren't, they're choosing bouncing boobs. The only sites left to them are the ones that were already illegal. Or a VPN service, which means the UK has no voice in the mainstream sites.
You turn people off the professional sites which can be held accountable and they end up on the dark side of the internet.
America saw the same thing when the puritans banned alcohol last century, people ran right into the arms of organised crime.
Like I said, these men could choose to not consume pornography at all. The responsibility for what they decide to access online lies with them.
No-one is forcing them to buy a VPN and visit pornography websites.
Well no-one is forcing me to wear pink on Sundays. This mere fact is not exactly an argument for banning the practice, is it?
Did you just equate a social media ban and torrenting to... child pornography?
No, he gave two different examples of websites that is typically blocked in the United Kingdom
Pointing out an analogy between two things, or describing them as two examples of a more general phenomenon, is not “equating” them.
[flagged]
recent petition, only takes a few secs:
Ban social media for under-16s to protect children https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/710283
I'm fairly agnostic to the headline question of whether social media should be banned for under 16s. The part that seems interesting to me is whether this will entail linking online activity to real world identity for the rest of us. It doesn't have to, but in practice I guess that's probably what'll happen. Unfortunately all the debate is "but freedom of speech" vs "but think of the kids" vs, and nobody will be lobbying for a better (or less worse) implementation.
If social media means FB, TikTok, Instagram then I'm all for it. Don't start smoking until you are an adult, and by then, perhaps you'll have a bit of reason.
This is sure to be a very constructive thread, but let me sum up the dissonance and solution I think will work.
IT people are rightly afraid this will be used to create Draconian requirements. Parents are rightly afraid social media is having extreme negative effects on children (and society).
Banning social media for 16 is the right way to go, and enforcement should be put on the parents / schools. Not the tech platforms beyond a cursory glance.
The goal should be to get >80% of kids off social media + a campaign to clarify the other 20% is a bunch of addicted losers getting played by an algorithm.
That's it. By making it the law you make it the norm. Dutch School policies banning phones have been overwhelmingly successful when you ask children and parents. They like having lunch breaks again where nobody is on their phone.
Delusions about perfect 100% coverage by some technical solution that boils down to mass surveillance / authorized users is just idiots saying idiot things.
All of this would be easier if we just called Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and all the others by a more correct name: “Sales-acceleration platforms” and it's mode of operation is "inducing emotional instability in consumers".
“Sales-acceleration platforms” should be regulated to protect consumers, no? Also, why do children need to be on “Sales-acceleration platforms”?
"Sales-acceleration platform", great naming I'm going to use this!
Honestly, my daughter has aged out of this now, but I don't hate it.
I don't think social media is a net positive for under 16s.
I don't think social media is a net positive for over 16s either
Haha! Fair, but at least adults can make a semi-informed choice.
And I don't think social media is a net positive for 16 year olds.
I promise I remember to include a greater than or equals to in my code ... most of the time.
It should be that when you sign up with an ISP AND have children, you should be required by law to install software to monitor and track your children's usage. It needs to be done at this level, as this then stops the Proxy, VPN argument as well.
This is both a technical and an educational problem that needs to be solved. The technology for network monitoring needs to be easier for parents to install, with all 18+ content blocked by default, etc. Companies have software installed that tracks everything you do—every piece of software you install (or can't install if the system is locked down). We need this level of technology available at home.
Now, if Microsoft, Google, etc all got together, backed by the government, they could build this in months, and so the cost would be low and shared.
All mobile phone contracts block access to 18+ content. If a child has a mobile phone, then yes, block access to social networks.
It could be a plug-in device that connects between your router OR an ISP-level feature that, when you first join, asks whether there are children in the house. If you say no and there are, then that's breaking the law.
When you first install it, a well-designed interface would prompt you to select your children's ages and add their devices (laptops, iPads, etc.). You install the client software locally, link everything up, and the whole system tracks and monitors usage. Problem solved.
If children go to friends' houses, there should be a way for them to join as guests so parents can still see everything.
If children go to grandparents' houses or friends of friends, then either you need to install this box to manage access, or there's no Wi-Fi. They'd have to use their mobile data.
What I don't agree with is that childless people have to comply. I don't know any children, and all the ones I did have have grown up now. Fundamentally, I do think that we need to find a better way to stop social media bullying, the fact that beheading or gore videos are so easily accessible - I think that's worse than any "normal" porn!
Children cannot drink or smoke. It's not like you can argue against this; parents have a responsibility to stop that from happening. It's no different; in fact, it's worse.
Now, of course, once kids get to 14+, they will find a way. Since the start of history, we've all gone through that, and nothing any government does is going to stop children from pushing boundaries, learning, and experimenting.
My concern is that Gov will go down a route where every website you sign up to requires AgeID. It will be impossible to have Anon accounts anywhere. Sites will love it as more advertising and tracking for everyone. I stopped posting on social networks, as the second you say anything slightly different from someone else, the trolls come out and attack. I simply could not be bothered, and so deleted all social networks.
Waiting now for the HN trolls to attack - don't worry, I simply cannot be bothered to respond :)
It could just be banned altogether, regardless of age.
Doing their level best to piss off the entire electorate with additional bureaucracy. Makes zero sense unless they’re actually trying to lose the next election.
I opened Snapchat for 5 mins in Australia (on a trip there) and now it’s demanding I prove my age.
Sadly I don't think these are unpopular policies. At least not before they are implemented. The British public love a good ban.
If it's for a positive outcome, yes.
You can present anything as positive. Ever since Lady Chatterley's Lover.
What is it about this 16 y/o cutoff that seems to be the focus everywhere? Why not 18?
It almost seems like this will make SM attractive by making it a kind of forbidden fruit and/or a social standing status indicator for impressionable, malleable minded, underdeveloped minds of teens seeking to feel like adults.
In other words, if I didn’t know any better, I would have guessed that it might actually be the likes of Facebook pushing these controls internationally (not the least because they seem so coordinated all across the planet) in order to manipulate target users into coveting having a fb/SM account again.
Tell me you think Facebook, the same Facebook that was caught running uncontrolled and illegal psychological manipulation testing on its users, would not do such a thing!
Why 18? Why not 21, or 26?
I agree with you that this would create a forbidden fruit, and a combination of social media becoming more desirable to under-16yo and teenagers binging social media as soon as they become 16. But the solution to that is to push the age limit down, not up. 14 or 12 would be much more reasonable ages. That gives parents a clear cutoff when their kids have to be ready for social media, and prevents bans in the phase where teens are most rebellious
This was an argument that was used to not ban smoking for kids in the UK back in the day. From the parliment debate...
> [banning smoking would] afford a direct encouragement to children to smoke. Most boys of a tender age who might be seen smoking in public places did so, not because of any attachment to tobacco, but because they considered it a practice in advance of their years, and something moreover which their elders told them not to do, affording them, therefore, the added pleasure of disobedience which was so dear to boys of their age.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1908-10-13/debates/6aa...
Perhaps it does make it cooler - but undoubtedly the restrictions reduced availability and reduced the number of children being addicted.
As for the actual age cut-off, it's always going to be fairly arbitrary, or a 'balanced judgement'.
You think Meta secretly wanted to remove 4.7m Australian users while saying:
> "We call on the Australian government to engage with industry constructively to find a better way forward, such as incentivising all of industry to raise the standard in providing safe, privacy-preserving, age-appropriate experiences online, instead of blanket bans,"
because ultimately they think it will attract more users to their platforms?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-15/social-media-ban-data...
https://www.9news.com.au/national/australia-social-media-ban...
> What is it about this 16 y/o cutoff that seems to be the focus everywhere? Why not 18?
Some studies have found that puberty is the peak problematic age for people to be on social media and 16 is the rough point by which mostly this is finished. There is a book, "The Anxious Generation" that covers this pretty well.
> uncontrolled and illegal psychological manipulation testing on its users
Facebook is so uncool to the youth the only idea they could come up with to make kids want to be on it again was to "ban" it.
In the UK, 16 is the age of consent for medical treatments, driving licenses, joining the armed forces, etc, so it's generally the age when a child can lawfully make many of their own decisions.
You need to be 15 years and 9 months to apply for a provisional driving licence, but 17 to drive a car, in most cases, though I think there's an exception for some disabled people. You need to be 13 to give consent for processing of personal data. The age of criminal responsibility is 10 in England and Wales, but higher in Scotland, I think. It used to be 16 for getting married, with parents' consent (or without, in Scotland), but I think that's been raised. You can leave school on the last Friday of June in the school year (Sep-Aug) in which you turn 16, or something like that. There are lots of different age limits. I think the real answer to "Why 16?" is basically "Why not?".