Some countries, and even some U.S. states, are working on restricting the use of social media for children under a certain age. One of the major players making the shift right now is Australia, who's parliament approved a strict social media ban for children under 16. While the ban is not yet in effect, it will restrict children under 16 from creating and using social media, with no exceptions for people already with an account or for people with parental consent. Other countries, like France, have similar restrictions. However, other countries, like Italy, allow exceptions for children with parental consent. Some states are attempting to do the same. Connecticut and New York are working to create safeguards to lower the risk of social media addiction, while Georgia and Tennessee want to require age verification and parental consent. In the U.S., most of these policies have been blocked due to litigation regarding whether or not such restrictions are constitutional.
We know that social media has an effect on the user's mental health, for both children and adults. It makes sense to want to shield children from such harm, and making it mandated makes it easier for kids to avoid the social stigma of not having social media. However, when some kids are able to have accounts just because their mom says so, then that stigma is hard to avoid. So, a blanket ban makes sense in the eyes of lawmakers.
For most places that are implementing some sort of social media restriction, they are requiring age verification before an account can be created. But can this truly be enforced in practice? Kids are smart, and they will always find a way around the rules if they try hard enough.
If you were like me in the early 2000s, a child who was chronically playing games online, then I'm sure you've done this before: a website asks you to confirm that you are over the age of 13 by typing in your date of birth, so you just roll it back by a year or two so that you could get onto the website. That's how most people my age were able to create Facebook accounts, and why their birthdays are still wrong on these sites. Consider websites made for adults only, which simply have a button saying something like "Confirm that I am over the age of 18" that you have to click before being allowed to view the site. There's no way for the website to know how old the user actually is with these methods, and this seems to be the most popular version of age verification out there.
Maybe they will require a government ID to be scanned before accessing a restricted site. Could a child steal their parents ID for 5 minutes just to scan and enter the website? Would a fake ID work? Can they just borrow their older cousin's ID? What about people that ARE old enough, but don't have a government issued ID?
What about VPNs? Could a child in Australia access social media by setting up a VPN in a country that allows them to use it without verification?
They could use AI biometrics to scan your face and estimate your age. But is it legal to do so? Would it be accurate? What if I just look young? What if my computer has no camera?
There are so many variables, with no definitive solution to accurately and legally determine if someone is of a certain age without a simple work-around. Making something illegal has never succeeded in wiping it out. People will find a way, whether it be black market account creation or simple ways to trick the system. While keeping children safe is a priority, we are better off working on solutions for putting safeguards in place to allow them to keep an active account in a way that limits potential harm. A blanket ban may be feasible down the road, but for now I think baby steps is the best way to go.
Hi Olivia, thanks for this interesting post! I think you make some great points throughout of how difficult policing this would truly be. I also don't know if this is a controversial opinion (or biased from a 2000s kid who had unrestricted Internet access) but I think banning kids from social media is a bad idea. It will do the reverse: it will only make them want to use it more and will encourage them to do dangerous workarounds to do so. Risk is a part of growing up- a kid might make a social media account too young and learn from it for better or worse so banning it just to mitigate a risk might developmentally or emotionally stunt them. It's better to take risks and make mistakes a kid than to never do so and end up making worse mistakes as an adult. I think baby steps or safeguards rather than an outright ban is more ideal. I also think involving AI gets tricky. Some parents might not want to consent to that, and having AI continuously scan kids' faces seems a bit iffy. You're also 100% right that there's no guarantee of accuracy. People who look young might face consequences. I know from even my phone's Face ID that it messes up; I have a fraternal twin and sometimes it goofs and lets me open her phone even though we look different.
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