Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban

Perceived harms of social media

• Many argue current, algorithmic feeds are “dopamine factories” that erode attention spans, mental health, and offline engagement, especially for teens.
• Short‑form vertical video (TikTok, Reels, Shorts) is singled out as highly addictive and crowding out hobbies or meaningful activities.
• Several posters link the rise of always‑on social apps and smartphones to spikes in teen anxiety, depression, self‑harm and body‑image issues, while others call this a moral panic with mixed or weak evidence.
• Some see social media as comparable to tobacco, alcohol, gambling or hard drugs: profitable, engineered to be addictive, and inappropriate for developing brains.

Support for the ban

• Supporters like that the state is finally “doing something,” even if imperfect, to ease the collective‑action problem parents face when “everyone else’s kids are on it.”
• They hope breaking the network effect (even partially) will reduce social pressure, allowing teens to socialize more offline, focus at school, and avoid algorithmic manipulation.
• Some frame it explicitly as a public‑health experiment: if usage drops and teen well‑being doesn’t improve, that would be evidence against the “social media causes harm” hypothesis.

Skepticism and likely circumvention

• Many doubt enforceability: kids are already bypassing age checks with VPNs, fake selfies, older‑looking friends, or simply using platforms that aren’t covered.
• Critics worry this just pushes teens to smaller, less moderated or more extreme spaces (fringe forums, imageboards, underground apps), potentially increasing risk.
• Several see the immediate impact as mostly political theatre: only a subset of apps is covered; logged‑out viewing still works; some big platforms use loose heuristics rather than robust checks.

Age verification, privacy and digital ID

• A major thread sees age checks as a wedge for broader de‑anonymization and digital ID—government or third‑party systems tying legal identity and biometrics to everyday internet use.
• Concerns include: data breaches of face scans and IDs; normalization of uploading documents to random vendors; governments or corporations later repurposing the infrastructure for surveillance or speech control.
• Others counter that privacy‑preserving schemes (tokens, zero‑knowledge proofs, government “yes/no” APIs) are possible, but note these are not what’s being rolled out in practice.

Civil liberties, politics and unintended effects

• Opponents call the ban a violation of young people’s rights to speech and political participation on what are de facto public forums.
• Some suspect ulterior motives: weakening youth‑led online criticism of foreign policy, entrenching legacy media, or paving the way to broader internet control and VPN restrictions.
• There’s concern for disabled, isolated, queer or abused teens who rely on online communities as their main social lifeline; examples are given of those already cut off and distressed.
• Comparisons are drawn to past moral panics (TV, radio, rock music, video games); defenders reply that the scale, personalization and constant availability of modern feeds are qualitatively different.

Parenting, norms and “the village”

• One camp says “just parent better” and objects to outsourcing parenting to the state.
• Others argue individual parenting is overwhelmed by network effects, peer pressure, school practices, and highly optimized engagement systems; regulation is needed to reset the baseline.
• Several note that offline “third places” for teens (malls, clubs, safe public spaces) have withered, and social media partly filled that vacuum. Without rebuilding those, bans may simply create a void.