Can a blanket social media ban protect minors?

Concern over the use of social media by minors has been rising worldwide. Several countries have considered or introduced age restrictions, bringing one question to the forefront: Should children under 16 be banned from social media?

As social media becomes increasingly embedded in young people's lives, however, a more fundamental question deserves attention: Can a blanket age ban really protect children?

A large-scale social experiment is taking place in Australia, which became the first country to ban social media for minors last December. Its experience will help examine how such restrictions work in practice.

Recent reports in The New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, Deutsche Welle and Agence France-Presse have highlighted difficulties in enforcing Australia's ban on social media use by children under 16. These include technical circumvention, migration to other platforms and the displacement of online risks. Many reports have questioned the cost of enforcement, technological limits and possible unintended consequences.

The evidence suggests that a rigid ban does not eliminate online risks. Instead, some young people may move from mainstream platforms, where regulation is relatively clear, to more hidden, fragmented and difficult-to-monitor online spaces.

Survey data also point to enforcement problems. Figures released by Australia's eSafety regulator showed that six weeks after the ban took effect — after which no new official survey report was released — about 70 percent of minors who had previously held accounts on affected platforms still retained them. Some platforms allowed users to attempt age verification repeatedly, while others appeared to encourage users to resubmit their age.

A University of Chicago survey published in April, titled Why Bans Fail: Tipping Points and Australia's Social Media Ban, found that four months after implementation, only about 27 percent of affected 14 — and 15-year-olds complied with the ban. Most were still using restricted platforms.

Unintended consequences are also beginning to emerge. By raising barriers to access through age thresholds and identity verification, such policies can increase demand for circumvention tools. Research has found signs of greater use of workarounds and alternative platforms after the ban, producing a complex pattern in which some accounts remain active, some users migrate to smaller platforms or messaging services, and others rely on technical tools to bypass restrictions.

In March, Britain's Molly Rose Foundation and an Australian youth insights organization conducted a survey on minors' social media use in Australia, calling for closer scrutiny of the ban's effectiveness. Andy Burrows, chief executive of the foundation, argued that children's online safety and well-being had not substantially improved since the social media ban on minors and said parents and children did not need a ban full of loopholes that created only a fleeting false sense of security.

Research by the center for intelligent media studies at Tsinghua University also found widespread circumvention. More than 70 percent of surveyed minors said they were still using social media after the ban, mainly by using family members' accounts, lying about their age, turning to lesser-known platforms or accessing overseas services through VPNs.

In other words, a blanket age ban focuses on the front door. It may appear to close one entrance while opening many hidden ones.

Age verification is the technical foundation of any ban-based policy, yet countries face a difficult trade-off. The stricter the verification, the greater the risk of intruding on privacy. The stronger the privacy protection, the easier verification may be to evade. At present, no technology can simultaneously offer complete accuracy, full privacy protection, low cost and freedom from bias. This reflects a deeper tension between tighter regulation and the protection of individual rights.

Protecting minors online therefore requires caution against reducing a complex governance problem to a single age threshold.

The risks young people face on social media are shaped not only by whether they can access a platform, but also by platform design, recommendation algorithms, content ecosystems, commercial incentives, peer interaction, parental involvement, school education and young people's own ability to manage their online behavior.

A blanket ban may reduce visible access to mainstream platforms in the short term, but it cannot eliminate young people's demand for online social interaction, entertainment, self-expression and information. Nor does it directly address the mechanisms behind specific risks such as addictive design, harmful content, interaction with strangers, privacy breaches and excessive spending.

More importantly, comprehensive bans may generate new governance problems. The result may be not the disappearance of risks, but their displacement — together with higher regulatory costs.

China has a vast population of underage internet users, and social media use among them is widespread. Any policy restricting minors' access would therefore affect tens of millions of families. Policy design should minimize disruption to ordinary users while providing effective protection, rather than making parents and children feel constrained at every turn.

China's circumstances also differ from those of Australia and Indonesia, where foreign-owned platforms play a major role. Most major platforms in China are domestic, which means regulation must also take industrial development into account. International experience is worth studying, but China needs a precise, sustainable governance framework suited to its own conditions.

Protecting minors online is ultimately a systemic undertaking involving platform responsibility, algorithm governance, business models, family involvement, school education and legal regulation.

Compared with countries such as Australia, China has already established a relatively comprehensive framework, including youth modes, anti-addiction mechanisms, real-name registration, regulations on minors' online protection and content governance systems.

The priority for China is therefore not to simply copy a minimum-age ban, but to improve the precision and effectiveness of governance within the existing framework.

Going forward, China should further develop a comprehensive approach combining age — and category-based protections, stronger platform responsibility, better product design, more accountable algorithms, privacy protection, cooperation between families and schools, and improved media literacy. It should also more actively share with the world China's approach, practices and experience in protecting minors online.

The author is vice-dean at the School of Journalism and Communication, Tsinghua University.

The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

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