A growing wave of countries are banning or restricting social media for children and teenagers, citing serious risks to mental health, including algorithmic recommendations of self-harm content. Yet many child-protection and digital-rights organisations, despite years of researching these harms, are not backing outright bans, warning that removing young people from these platforms treats symptoms rather than causes and could introduce fresh dangers, such as those linked to age-verification systems.

Australia banned under-16s from social media last year and is held up internationally as a model, but six months on, seven in ten parents said their children still had accounts on platforms like Instagram, TikTok or Snapchat. The UAE has barred under-15s, the UK plans a midnight curfew for 16- and 17-year-olds and a tougher under-16s ban, and France has passed a bill banning social media for under-15s pending presidential sign-off. Critics argue platforms also provide valuable socialising, learning and identity-building spaces, particularly for marginalised youth, and that age-verification measures risk exposing sensitive data, as reportedly happened when Discord introduced its system in 2025.