A Tsinghua University report on global social media restrictions for minors argues that minors’ digital literacy may matter more than their presumed protection via outright bans.
The report, published by Tsinghua University’s School of Journalism and Communication on June 29, examined current social media restrictions on minors worldwide. It then analyzed Australia — which last year became the first country to ban minors under 16 from major social media platforms — as a case study.
Current policies implemented by countries in their attempt to tackle social media usage among minors were grouped into three approaches: setting a minimum age for access to social media, as in Australia; requiring platforms to protect minors through application design, such as defaulting accounts to the highest privacy settings, as in the UK; and applying differentiated regulation based on age, content, and platform risk, as in Germany’s proposed legislation.
The report states that the stricter the age verification, the more likely it is to infringe on privacy due to the user’s need to provide additional personal details. However, although more relaxed age verification protects greater individual privacy, it is also easier for users to bypass. It adds that countries that opt for blanket bans often do so because they have few or no major domestic social media platforms, such as Australia and Indonesia, while countries with homegrown platforms tend to favor more moderate regulation.
To study the effects of Australia’s regulations, the report drew on 240 media reports, 42,700 online comments, and a survey of 1,000 minor social media users, parents, and educators. It found that downloads of VPNs — which allow those affected by the policy to circumvent restrictions — nearly tripled around the time of the country’s banning of minors, while downloads of social media platforms not included in the ban also surged.
“This indicates that minors’ social needs have not been eliminated, but instead have shifted to spaces that are harder to regulate,” the report said.
More than half of the parents surveyed were aware their children were bypassing the ban, with nearly one-third choosing to tolerate such behavior. Roughly half of educators surveyed supported the ban.
Based on an analysis of 1,309 academic review articles, the report also found insufficient evidence to prove a causal link between social media use and psychological disorders among minors.
The report concludes by advocating a tiered regulatory system to refine current Chinese policy, based on two dimensions: user age and perceived platform risk to minors. For lower-risk platforms, the report outlines, verification could rely on self-reported age and real-name checks. For higher-risk platforms, users could be required to undergo facial age estimation or parental authorization. The report did not specify how platform risk would be assessed.
“Today’s adolescents are digital natives, and cyberspace has already become one of the spaces in which they grow up. Cutting them off from the internet runs contrary to how they’re developing,” Lei Li, a professor at Renmin University’s School of Education, said at a related seminar held in conjunction with the report’s announcement.
Several experts at the seminar argued that improving minors’ digital literacy would be more effective than external restrictions. “If you want them to learn to swim, you have to let them get into the water first,” Zheng Ning, a professor at the Communication University of China, added.
In China, approximately 82% of minors use social media, according to a survey released by Beijing Normal University in March.
In 2019, the country’s top internet regulator introduced a “youth mode” on major video, livestreaming, and gaming platforms, limiting minors’ screen time, tipping, and in-game spending while pushing more educational content. The mode was extended to smart devices such as children’s watches in 2024.
That same year, China’s first comprehensive regulation on protecting minors online took effect, covering internet addiction, cyberbullying, and the protection of minors’ personal data.
Editor: Marianne Gunnarsson.
(Header image: VCG)
