Are Bans on Children’s Access to Social Media a Good Plan?

There is little doubt that social media has introduced many kinds of challenges to the lives of young people. Whether we chose to or not, most of us have come upon some nasty stuff on the internet. Australia has led what will likely be an international rush to regulate kids’ access to social media. Should we applaud this new measure or should we worry about it?

While the attempt to ensure that people under the age of sixteen do not have access to pornography, radicalizing material, and are not bullied or groomed for sexual exploitation, is laudable, we need to consider a few other matters. 

Will this measure work? Can legislation keep children safe from these harms? Is law the right tool to do this? The Australian legislation says that Media will be age-restricted where: 

• the sole purpose, or a significant purpose, of the service is to enable online social interaction between two or more end-users
• the service allows end-users to link to, or interact with, some or all of the other end-users
• the service allows end-users to post material on the service.

In other words, communication that is commonly used by most young people. Notably media like WhatsApp and email are not included. So yes, kids can still exchange photos of their genitalia – and receive them from people they may not know. It just won’t happen on TikTok, Facebook, or Instagram.

Some have compared this age restriction to universal vaccination. We know that vaccinations are not perfect and that viruses can still get through but not many people are working to find ways to contract diseases they have been vaccinated against. But will kids look for ways to get around the age-restrictions? Do they find ways to get into the liquor cabinet? Do they know here the candy is hidden? While the youngest kids may not find ways to get access to hidden materials, the older ones who are often more computer literate than their adults, will find the challenge exciting. The legislation may be to the internet what the older sibling’s magazine collection used to be to earlier generations.

What about bullying? I live across the street from a school yard. I can assure you that free-range bullying is alive and well, unassisted by any technology. As long as there are grade six girls who disapprove of what another grade six girl is wearing, or how she does her hair, or who is in her family, there will be bullying. Kids will exclude, taunt, and hurt other kids unless we have vigilant teachers and other adults monitoring and responding to these activities. Bullying may happen online, but it continues to happen in many other spheres because it is in the nature of the beast. 

And grooming children for sexual exploitation? We know that this is most often accomplished by adults already known to the children, often family members. We overstate stranger danger and do not do enough to educate kids about the realities of those dangers. Yes, they should know to avoid meeting people who have approached them through social media. They should also know how to speak about the uncle or family friend who is a real danger.

But let us not forget that our rights begin at birth. Article 13 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child protects freedom of expression. We have the right, in Canada, unfettered by “unreasonable” legislation, to express ourselves and to interact with the expression of others. The right to read begins with the ability to do it. 

Needless to say, not all reading matter is suitable for all readers.

While the UN Convention lists purposes for which freedom of expression might be honourably limited, that list is more aspirational than detailed. This is why we need to ask, and educate our children to ask, questions about limits to their rights. The first question is about the purpose for the laws that limit the rights. Why do it at all? Again, the Australian legislation lays out honourable purposes. 

This is not enough.

Will the restrictions work? Will they achieve their goal? Perhaps for certain young people, they will. The youngest children will not know about what they cannot see. Their families can feel comforted that these children might grow up not missing much. But as soon as they begin to explore the internet, they will find places they cannot go. Even a mildly curious child will want an explanation – or may just find ways to work around the blockade. Whatever this child chooses, they will come to understand that they have lost agency. 

Even the Australian legislation mentions unintended consequences. It doesn’t acknowledge what those consequences are, but they are definitely an issue. Recently a friend told me that she had found help for a medical problem she has on, of all places, TikTok. There were exercises on that site that really benefitted her condition. Imagine a teenager, too shy or embarrassed to speak about a medical issue she is living with, who could have found help through social media. She could have found a community of people who have the same issues, or suggestions that helped empower her to seek medical or other help. The Google search that older people might turn to is not going to do what a collection of her peers would do.

Apart from the loss of agency, I believe that creating an age block, or indeed any ban that removes reading material from young people, is an act of laziness and a failure of education. And education may be the real solution to the dangers of the internet. From the earliest years, adults help children to make choices. What to eat, what to wear, what to read, whom to befriend, where to go, among many other kinds of choices, are taught to us as a matter of course. Now that computers pervade our lives, that even babies sit in strollers holding iPads, the adult world is making and influencing these choices. Education that is ongoing, iterative, and develops as children develop is the only way we can protect our children. Bans cannot and will not work. They are rights restrictions that are untenable in democratic societies.