According to Business Insider, 2026 is shaping up to be the landmark year for global action on kids using social media. Australia’s law banning social media for children under 16 took effect in December 2025, making it the first major nation to do so. French President Emmanuel Macron, in a New Year’s Eve speech, reiterated his goal for France to follow Australia’s example with a ban for under-15s planned for next fall. Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced a similar under-15 ban plan in October, and Norway is considering measures, while Malaysia intends to act this year. In the US, a patchwork of state laws is advancing, like Virginia’s one-hour daily limit for under-16s and Nebraska’s parental consent rule, though they face legal challenges. Social media giants like Meta and Google have criticized the bans, touting their own safeguards and questioning feasibility.
The enforcement nightmare
So here’s the immediate, glaring problem: how do you actually enforce this? Australia’s law is live, but the mechanics are messy. The government essentially made platforms liable, forcing them to figure out age verification. Meta and Google wanted to delay and use a trial verification system. Think about that for a second. These are the most sophisticated tech companies on the planet, and they’re basically throwing their hands up saying, “This is hard!” Elon Musk called it a “backdoor way to control access to the Internet.” He’s being hyperbolic, as usual, but he’s pointing to a real tension. Is the endgame here just a heavily gated, ID-checked internet for everyone? Because that’s what robust age verification looks like.
The American patchwork problem
Now, look at the US. It’s a total mess of conflicting state laws. Virginia says one hour a day unless parents opt out. Utah and Florida have age-verification laws tied up in court. Some states are just banning phones in schools altogether. It’s a regulatory Frankenstein’s monster. And that’s probably by design—a nationwide law in the home of Meta, TikTok, and X was always going to be a non-starter in Congress. But this patchwork creates its own chaos. What happens when a kid in Virginia, using a VPN, accesses a platform based in California, which has different rules? It’s unworkable. The Danish PM’s warning about social media “stealing childhood” resonates, but the solution isn’t simple.
Unintended consequences and dark corners
This is where we need to be most careful. UNICEF, of all organizations, raised a red flag in December. They warned that social media bans “may even backfire.” Why? Because some marginalized kids rely on these platforms for community and support. And let’s be real: teenagers are the most resourceful circumventors of rules in history. If you wall off the mainstream platforms, they’ll just find sketchier, less-moderated alternatives or dive into darker corners of the internet. You haven’t solved the safety problem; you’ve just moved it somewhere with no guardrails at all. The concerns about mental health are valid and urgent, but a blunt-force ban feels like treating a symptom without understanding the disease. Is the goal to protect kids, or just to make it look like we’re protecting kids?
So what’s the real fix?
I think we’re seeing a massive overcorrection. After years of letting platforms self-regulate with pathetic “family center” dashboards that no one uses, governments are swinging for the fences with bans. But it seems like we’re skipping the middle ground: actual, transparent, and auditable safety-by-design standards, real consequences for algorithms that push harmful content to kids, and maybe—just maybe—investing in digital literacy and mental health resources. The bans feel politically popular and decisive. But the history of tech regulation is littered with well-intentioned laws that failed because they didn’t grasp how the technology actually works or how people, especially young people, will behave. This year will be the big test. And I’m skeptical.
