Social Media Ban For Teenagers: Lazy and Undemocratic

Great Britain, Australia and Spain want to ban social media for teenagers. Why I believe that this is a bad idea and lazy politics that once again only protects the interests of giant corporations and capitalists.

Problems with Social Media

There are many issues with social media in 2026, and, of course, teenagers are affected by them as well. Social media is addictive and manipulates one's self-image. It amplifies social pressures, spreads fake news, and spies on its users. The fact that these issues are not limited to teenagers is a point to which we will return later. Still, teenagers and children are more susceptible to these effects than adults because they have not yet developed their personalities.

Social Media - the Cigarettes of the 21st Century?

Proponents of a ban argue that social media is similar to cigarettes. They are bad for you, so only adults who are of age and mature enough to make an informed decision should be allowed to use it.

And it's true. Between 2001 and 20023 the amount of teenagers smoking in Germany fell drastically to around 7%.

However, in Germany cigarette bans were increased from under 16 to under 18 in 2007, yet the declining trend began much earlier. Furthermore, since the rise in popularity of vaping, the number of teenagers who smoke monthly has surged back up to around 20% . It's as if social pressure, education about health risks, and aesthetics are much more influential in consumption levels than law and order.

Regulations such as displaying disgusting images on packaging and prohibiting ads for them on TV and in other public spaces are also successful.

However, smoking shows that where there's a will, there's a way. The enforcement of the ban is highly difficult, which brings us to how social media bans would most likely be enforced. Spoiler alert: via surveillance and data collection. There also is the question if enforcing the ban via technical means is even the best solution. After all, nobody needs to scan their face and show their ID when there is a TV show on that is Peggi-18. Its upon the parents to enforce a healthy viewing culture.

Enforcing Age Verification: The Beginning of the End to a Free Internet

To be in accordance with the new laws, platforms like Discord have already begun age verification measures. Not only were they easily tricked with virtual avatar technologies or even simply drawing a smiley on your finger, the company running the verification is closely tied to Peter Thiel and Palantir, who are part of, if not even the main proponent of, an anti-democratic and fascist elite in another piece. In addition, Discord has just been subject to a huge data breach in the end of last year, already leaking over 70,000 government IDs.

From a purely technological point of view, there might be more privacy-focused alternatives to straight up uploading an ID, like a token-based system from a government-sourced age verification app, as proposed by the EU (specification available on GitHub). However, all of these solutions would still kill the anonymous web.

If every platform has your identity, freedom of expression is in grave danger. Even in supposedly free countries like Germany, freedom of expression is under heavy assault. So much so that the UN sent their UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Opinion, Irene Khan, to Germany for the first time ever. Khan concluded that Germany must increase its protection of freedom of expression. Perfect timing for Chancellor Merz to demand mandatory real names on Social Media. The importance of anonymity for a free and liberal society should be clear. If not, read this piece I wrote about how liberal democracy cannot exist without data privacy.

Better Solutions are possible

Is it so difficult to imagine better solutions? Apparently not. Even Germany's most right-wing social democratic party is more creative. They propose a separate app for children/teenagers that is free of algorithms that decide what you watch. Children could still connect with each other, and this would enable them to exercise their constitutional right to participate in society, of which internet phenoms and memes have become a central, if not its core component. While perhaps more easily enforceable by the parents, the issue of enforcing the separation of accounts or apps would persist.

The harms of Social Media also impact adults. My grandma, I would argue, is just as, if not more susceptible to AI slop, fake news and disinformation compared to my younger cousin, because she has never learned media literacy. Adult opinions can still be manipulated by feeding them propaganda.

That brings me to my first point. It is essential that people are taught media literacy from the very beginning. Excluding them from the social web until they are 16 (or 13) would just induce a shock that completely overwhelms them. Make media literacy and critical thinking a top priority in education.

Secondly, I would argue that social media platforms can function without commercializing your attention span, regardless ones age. They could be regulated to show only the content of the people you follow in a transparent, sortable feed -i.e., by time, upvotes, or rising posts. Discover new content by showing what people you follow like or by using network theory to show your k-nearest neighbors. Perhaps the algorithmic feed could be opt-in, with adequate warnings like those on cigarette packing. There could even be a daily limit on the total time you're allowed to spend scrolling through your algorithmic feed, as well as a limit on consecutive time spent on it. Ads should definitely be more clearly marked. Remove AI generated content. Moderate hateful comments and posts. Simply banning it is lazy.

Social media platforms like TikTok and the Meta-platforms are multibillion-dollar companies with the power to bring down governments and manipulate elections and public opinion. They need to be heavily regulated. That is, of course if you want to preserve their capitalist interests. Even better would be to accompany such regulations by abolishing their monopoly and transitioning them to federated services, thereby removing these powers from them. In a federated model, there isn't one central owner controlling everything. Rather, anyone can host their own server, whether they are an individual, a community, or a business. The magic is that all of these servers are connected, so you can follow, reply to, and read posts from users on any other server, no matter who hosts it - there is no central power.

The network effect is real, its difficult to move platforms when none of your peers are on them. Therefore enforcing federation for all social media platforms, along with regulation of the feeds would be a great step towards a open and free web. I am also on Instagram and Whatsapp myself, and I would love to be able to take my data and move it to a self hosted or trusted instance while still being able to write messages in my sports team group chat or view the posts of my mates and send them interesting content. Speaking of which, if you want a free open web send them this article.