Konstantin Mühlberg · Oct 7, 2026

Set a legal minimum age of 16

2 reasons4 sources

Governments should ban social media accounts for under-16s by law, and platforms should be required to take reasonable steps to keep them off, with fines if they don't. Supporters argue that a clear legal line takes pressure off individual families ("everyone else is allowed"). They also say it puts the burden on the companies that profit from young users, and that it matches how society already treats other age-limited risks.

Reasons

1.
Platforms profit from young users, so they should carry the cost of keeping them off.
- eSafety Commissioner: New regulatory guidance released ahead of minimum age law (esafety.gov.au)
- Supports
  Australia’s law fines platforms that fail to take reasonable steps; it doesn’t punish children or parents.
  - Australian Government: Social media minimum age (infrastructure.gov.au)
Objections
- Objection · Leaves something out
  Checking age means checking every user’s age, so adults pay in privacy too.
  - Electronic Frontier Foundation: Age verification (eff.org)
2.
Research points to early adolescence as the most sensitive age, which is exactly the group a limit of 16 covers.
- Orben et al., “Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media”, Nature Communications (2022) (mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk)
Objections
- Objection · Overstated
  The same study found the effects were small and ran both ways: unhappier teens also went on to use social media more.

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