The UK is considering banning social media for anyone under 16. My reaction? Mixed.

I'm not opposed to kids using technology. Tech is the world they live in, and it's a core part of their futures. I'm also generally not a fan of banning platforms or experiences. My instinct is almost always toward education and guardrails, not prohibition.

But.

Create a TikTok account, behave like a child (which simply means watch content that will appeal to a child), and you will be inundated with harmful, disturbing, or manipulative content almost immediately. That's not speculation, it's documented. And social media companies have shown little real interest in fixing it. To be fair, it's a genuinely hard technical problem, the sheer volume of data and the endlessly changing ways to present content, yeah, it's a challenge. But it's their challenge to address. If they can't, or if their business models quietly prefer that kids stay glued to the feed, that's not an excuse. It's a failure. And when an industry fails this badly, governments don't have many options.

So I get why lawmakers are stepping in, even if I'd rather they didn't have to.

That said, I have two significant concerns, and we now have actual data to look at, because Australia already did this. Australia became the first country to prohibit under-16s from using major social media platforms in December 2025, and the early results so far are instructive.

Kids will get online anyway.

We all knew this would happen. Schools have had internet filters for decades, and kids have been beating them for just as long. Proxies, VPNs, cellular hotspots, Google Translate as a workaround, browser developer tools, even AI being prompted for help circumventing blocks. IT departments are stuck in a perpetual game of whack-a-mole: block, monitor, re-block. One researcher put it plainly:

"Kids will always be one step ahead of any filter or software restriction you apply."

If schools with dedicated IT staff and physical control over devices can't keep determined kids off blocked sites, what exactly is a national age-verification system going to accomplish?

The Australian data answers that. Nearly 75% of Australia's 14- to 15-year-olds are online anyway, in large part because they perceive that their peers are online and don't want to miss out. The ban drove a major spike in downloads of lesser-known platforms like Rednote, Yope, and Lemon8. Kids shifted to gaming and messaging apps, used VPNs, and many who were initially locked out reported being able to create new accounts almost immediately. Reddit discussions focused on bypassing age-verification systems rose from just a single thread in May 2025 to 65 by April 2026.

Teenagers are nothing if not motivated.

We'll make it harder for parents.

This one worries me more, and it's not a criticism of parents, most are genuinely in the dark, and that's not surprising. These platforms are designed by some of the smartest engineers in the world, optimised to keep users engaged, and they change constantly. Keeping up is hard.

To be fair, some Australian parents have found the ban useful, allowing them to have conversations they'd otherwise struggle to have:

“The ban has highlighted to my kids that there are genuine reasons why young people should be wary of social media. It’s not just that their mum is old and doesn’t get it. It’s reduced arguments.”

Indeed, a YouGov survey of Australian parents found 61% observed positive behavioural changes following the ban - more in-person socialising, more present kids, improved parent-child relationships. Encouraging. But the risk is that parents take those results as a signal to step back. Already, 27% of parents reported their kids had simply shifted to alternative or less regulated platforms. It's already happening. One Australian father noted that:

“It has made monitoring and managing device use even more difficult.” 

And of course it has. Social media use has been pushed into the shadows, out of the major apps and into darker corners of the internet, ones harder to supervise and monitor.

The result? Parents being stuck somewhere between a false sense of security and hopelessly in the dark. That's not a win.

So, what to do?

If the ban passes, and most expect that it will (with other countries not far behind) it shouldn't become a reason to disengage. Learn the platforms your kids are actually using, not the ones you yourself are comfortable with or the ones you assume they're on. Go through privacy and safety settings together - most major platforms have parental controls and family pairing features that most parents don't know exist. Have the conversation regularly. Ask open questions. What are you seeing? What are you seeing that you never asked for? Has anything made you uncomfortable? Kids who feel like they can talk to you are far safer than kids who feel like they have to hide.

The law can support all of that. It can't substitute for it.