Should SA ban kids from being on social media? This is why it won’t work

Australia this week passed a law banning children under the age of 16 from signing up on social media platforms. The first thought I had was whether Australia should have done it.

Australia’s social media ban

It’s already being referred to as the Australia model as the UK and others consider doing the same. But is keeping kids off social media really all it’s cracked up to be? What problems is this law supposed to solve? Why did it take so long to get this traction as Facebook has been in the game for more than 15 years?

If you’re above 30, you’ll remember the tiki phone boxes. If your family was rich, you’d even have a card with 20 bucks loaded on it and could use the green boxes nobody else could afford. Today, however, all the kids are connected and big tech has capitalised.

If anything, the tech companies have themselves to blame for this new law since there never was any serious effort to keep the platforms safe for children. Most kids can take advantage of their parents’ lack of any technical know-how, even if they had an interest in keeping their children safe.

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It’s no surprise that lawmakers felt the need to step in and take care of the problems social media is causing. But, will this be the answer? When Texas clamped down on pornography and eventually banned PornHub altogether, the only people smiling were the VPN providers. It seems that if people want to do things on the internet, no amount of law will stop them. How long do you think it will take 14-year-old Aussies to find a workaround to keep them on TikTok?

Can governments keep children offline?

If we could easily buy booze, weed and cigarettes as teenagers all over the world, how would any government keep us offline in 2024? No. The idea is stupid, even by bogan standards.

In South Africa, nothing would be more amazing than getting rid of the toxicity on social media. But getting rid of social media itself is hardly the solution. The toxicity is already there. Taking away the platform where it manifested doesn’t rid us of the problem. If anything, it will just create new markets for it to thrive.

If the issue is kids are spending too much time on their screens, then banning them from some of the most addictive aspects simply creates new markets for other screen addictions. You don’t need a lot of research to realise that there are more kids vaping today than there were kids smoking yesterday. That’s the way enticing things work.

ALSO READ: TikTok bans thousands of SA accounts for violating rules

One of the most impressive workforces within the police is the Saps cyber division, but even they will have their hands full trying to enforce any social media ban in the country. Rather have them deal with the real issues like cyberbullying, sextortion and online fraud.

Make a law that actually fixes the problem

Preventing a 15-year-old from posting questionable photographs on Instagram is not the realm of the law but the realm of parenting.

If real change is to happen and protection of children on social media is to be addressed by the law then impose laws that actually do that. Make laws that allow parents to set time limits or even select which apps their kids can use.

Make laws that discourage bad behaviour without outright bans. Remember how we all used to download music illegally? Now that’s just too much effort relative to paying a marginal fee to stream unlimited amounts. Social media can be the same.

Make it easier to do the good stuff instead of making it enticing to do the stuff you want to get rid of. Already the first generation of Instagram influencers are becoming parents. Is banning the platform for their kids going to keep them off the platform or encourage parents to start their kids’ pages and build followings until they’re 16?

The law rarely gets anything done by creating a ban. Why would banning kids from social media be any different?

Australia has offered us a unique opportunity; one to make a law that actually fixes a problem rather than trying to sweep it away.

Because what? At 16, all of a sudden, kids will be able to use social media responsibly? Get outta here!

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