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Policymakers could instead consider comprehensive digital literacy education in schools or stronger platform regulation to improve content moderation and safety features for younger users.
"Let's add more propaganda to young people's lives" isn't the answer. Neither is more regulation. If that's what they wanted, they'd prefer mainstream media to begin with.
I acknowledge that “digital literacy” can become propaganda if it simply means teaching children to trust approved sources and distrust everything else.
What I mean is different.
Effective digital literacy should mean teaching young people to critically evaluate all sources, including social media, government communications, influencers, schools, mainstream media, and corporate platforms.
That could include source-verification exercises, lessons on recognising bias and misinformation, workshops on how algorithms shape content exposure, and practical activities involving fact-checking and cross-referencing. Frameworks such as the CRAAP test (Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose) can also help students systematically assess information.
The solution is not simply to tell young people to trust the BBC over TikTok.
The better approach is to teach them how incentives work, how algorithms influence attention, how narratives are framed, how data is collected, and how claims can be independently verified.
There are already useful examples of this. Finland is often cited for embedding media literacy into education, helping students develop stronger habits for assessing online information. Research from Stanford has also shown that targeted digital literacy interventions can improve people’s ability to distinguish credible information from false or misleading content.
Taken together, these examples suggest that critical digital skills are teachable and can have a measurable impact.
Stronger platform regulation should focus on transparency around recommendation systems, age-appropriate design, addictive features, data collection, and default safety settings, rather than simply increasing state control over speech.
For example, platforms could be required to publish clearer reports on how their algorithms recommend content, explain their data collection practices in accessible language, and submit to independent audits that verify whether their public claims are accurate.
Of course, the risk is that we replace one form of manipulation with another.
That is why the objective should be to reduce control, not increase control under the language of protection.
Effective policy has to balance genuine child safety concerns with individual autonomy, open access to information, and the danger of making people more dependent on centralised authorities.
Acknowledging those trade-offs would make the debate more honest than pretending the only options are a social media ban or doing nothing.
Australia’s social media ban is already exposing a central policy trade-off that decision-makers often leave unaddressed.
A 2026 study conducted by researchers from Western Sydney University, Queensland University of Technology, and the University of Canberra found that young Australians most affected by the under-16 social media restrictions are not simply transitioning to higher-quality news sources, which shows the ban may not improve access to better information.
Many are receiving less news overall, showing that the restrictions can reduce young people's access to information.
However, this does not imply that social media is without harm. Concerns regarding addiction, bullying, exposure to harmful content, and mental health are legitimate.
Nevertheless, well-intentioned policies can still result in significant unintended consequences. Restricting social media access may reduce civic engagement among young people, as they lose access to platforms where public issues are discussed and debated. It may also push adolescents toward unregulated or less reliable online sources for information, potentially increasing their exposure to misinformation.
For many adolescents, social media serves not only as a source of entertainment but also as a platform for accessing news, public debates, political discourse, and issues that may not be covered by traditional media.
A separate 2026 study by Bursztyn, Duckworth, Jiménez-Durán, Leonard, Milojević, Roth, and Sunstein indicates that the Australian ban is challenging to enforce. Approximately one in four affected 14–15-year-olds complied with the restrictions, while many continued to use social media platforms due to peer presence.
Therefore, the central issue is not whether social media presents challenges, but how responses should balance those challenges against access.
The pertinent question is whether governmental responses should involve excluding young people from the primary digital public sphere, particularly when such actions are justified solely on the grounds of safety. Policymakers could instead consider comprehensive digital literacy education in schools or stronger platform regulation to improve content moderation and safety features for younger users. Exploring such options encourages a broader conversation about balancing protection with young people's access to information and civic participation.
This issue is especially salient in the United Kingdom, where the government is progressing toward lowering the voting age to 16.
If young people are deemed sufficiently mature to participate in democratic processes, they require access to information, public debate, and discussion, which makes it harder to justify restrictions on their access.
The state may characterize these measures as protective.
However, when access to information is regulated under the premise of safety, a fundamental question arises:
Who determines the boundaries of permissible knowledge? This question connects to broader debates about government censorship, young people's rights to access information, and the foundations of democratic participation. It raises important concerns about who is empowered to shape young citizens' worldview and whether restricting digital access undermines youth autonomy. Ultimately, such policies prompt us to consider how societies can protect young people while respecting their rights to contribute to and be informed participants in public life.