June 21, 2026, 4:00 a.m. ET
The kids aren’t all right – at least, according to politicians.
In a shocking move, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on June 15 that the country plans on banning social media for children under 16. The regulations will be introduced in Parliament by the end of this year, with a ban expected to be underway by next spring.
“I am not prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children, and that is why this ban must happen,” Starmer said.
The United Kingdom follows the lead of Australia, which banned social media for anyone under 16 in 2025. In America, several states, including New York, have banned or restricted social media use for minors.
Unfortunately, Starmer could be opening up a plethora of new concerns for parents and children without realizing it, and there’s reason to worry that the United States will find its own ways to regulate teens online. When we allow octogenarian lawmakers with little understanding of the world online ‒ and a terrible track record of regulating these companies ‒ do all the talking, we fail to see the benefits that come with social media.
Social media gave me community I couldn’t have otherwise found
Last year, I wrote that social media bans for minors were a good thing, citing my own experience as a teenager. In the months since, I have thought about the way I interacted with social media as a teen, and the way it shaped who I am today.
Yes, I was a little too chronically online from a young age. Yes, it probably wasn’t the best thing for my mental health, in the same way that it is not good for my mental health now. Yet I was the kind of teenager for whom social media was a portal to the world that I would never have gotten growing up in rural North Carolina.
I spent several of my teenage years on Tumblr.com, reblogging black-and-white photos of city buildings and stills from Lana Del Rey music videos. It is on this website that I began planning the person I was going to be when I grew up: a writer who lived in a big city, who went to concerts and parties and wore cool clothes.
What I didn’t know was that my experience on Tumblr was also shaping my identity, and helping me connect with my queerness by allowing me to find other LGBTQ+ people outside of my small town.
By nature of being online, I ended up absorbing information about the world outside county lines. Tumblr discourse shaped me, asking me to consider the lived experiences of other people. My first memories of interacting with conversations on race, gender, class and politics took place on the site, well before I had these discussions in a classroom. It was there that my own belief systems were formed; if it were not for my love of the World Wide Web, I doubt I’d be a columnist.
For teenagers in rural areas, sometimes their only connection to communities that look like them is the community that exists online. I know that’s certainly true for the LGBTQ+ community. For many of us who grew up on social media, our online communities were the places we fit in when school and home felt isolating.
Social media bans don’t work, or help
Aside from my own history online, there are some very real problems with the efficacy and ethics of a social media ban.
There is no perfect way to properly identify someone’s age. Sixteen-year-olds don’t have a uniform appearance, and there are plenty of people who don’t look their age. Kids are also smart; they’re much more tech savvy than legislators give them credit for. Teens are likely to use artificial intelligence or good old-fashioned photoshop to change their age, and a fake ID is pretty easy to get.
Six months into Australia’s ban, it has largely failed to keep children offline.
Taylor Lorenz, a technology and culture journalist, took this a step further in a Guardian column on social media bans and framed it as a free speech issue: “This could transform the internet from a space of free expression to a fully surveilled digital panopticon where every action you take online is tied to your government ID.”
It’s also fascinating – and frightening – that we have to resort to government action to regulate companies and executives that could simply have a clear set of morals beyond “making money good.”
While the CEOs of several social media companies have come out in support of the Kids Online Safety Act in the United States, it seems like there are guardrails that could be put in place by these corporations before any legislation is passed.
This would likely happen if advertisers put their foot down and no longer tried to market everything toward children – a gargantuan task in a capitalist society.
It seems that the problem is more nuanced than anyone wants to admit, yet we are supposed to feel strongly about regulating the internet for “the sake of the children.”
Yes, the internet is a vast and scary place. It is also the thing that made me the person I am today, that helped me see the possibility of a life beyond my hometown. Other children deserve that opportunity, too.
Follow USA TODAY columnist Sara Pequeño on Bluesky:@sarapequeno.bsky.social
