Australia is moving to a total ban on social media for kids under 16; US lawmakers should take note.
An ever-growing body of research shows this stuff to be toxic to children’s mental health, yet it’s near-impossible for parents to police when it’s grown central to any socializing.
The Aussie approach isn’t to penalize kids or parents, by the way, but to hold platforms responsible for genuine screening.
The likes of TikTok, Instagram, X and Facebook would have a year to work out how to get it done.
And while no barrier is foolproof, an international rush to copy the Aussies would also give these companies no incentive to make their products especially addictive to kids — as several plainly now do.
Making those algorithms a profit-risk instead of a profit-maximizer would go a long way to countering the poison all by itself.
Of course Big Tech will spend big to sideline the Aussie proposal, but popular demand is starting to win the day, as with the US law to force the sale of TikTok and Gov. Hochul’s push to enact the first-in-the nation social-media protections — the New York Child Data Protection and the Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation acts — into law this spring.
There’s no issue under the US Constitution: We’re talking about minors, not adults, and US courts have long permitted the regulation of commercial speech.
Nor is this about giving government officials the power to censor: It’s a content-neutral ban.
At the very least, American lawmakers should get the discussion going, so the likes of Instagram get real now about de-toxifying their products.