How to regulate social media for teens (and make it stick): Inman Grant, Allen weigh in 

As countries around the world line up online safety legislation to impose age checks on social media, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner is here to tell everyone that it won’t be easy.

Australia set the precedent for social media age assurance requirements last year, when its Online Safety Act and select codes went into effect. In an interview with the BBC, Julie Inman Grant – who has, for better or worse, become something of a figurehead for age verification laws, at least among the U.S. Republican party – says major social media platforms “have come to this regime, if you will, kicking and screaming –  very very reluctantly.”

“We’ve always had to play a bit of a dance with the tech companies, clearly they don’t like to be regulated.”

Still, despite a barrage of legal challenges and a summons from U.S. Congress requesting that she appear to defend herself against claims she is running a “global censorship regime,” Inman Grant says she is more or less happy with how things have rolled out so far. Early returns show that covered platforms removed access to about 4.7 million accounts flagged as belonging to children under 16 in the first half of December.

The policy, she says, “is certainly exceeding our expectations, but we are playing the long game here.” She notes (and promises to probe) some “anomalies and weaknesses” identified in Snapchat.

The eSafety Commissioner has been consistent in her message that the list of covered services will remain “dynamic,” and can be adjusted to adapt to changes in how platforms operate.

Political skirmishes erupt as pressure from parents grows

The UK is currently learning some of the same lessons that have made the road bumpy in Australia. But these lessons are born of internal politics, rather than pressure or pushback from Silicon Valley. Politics Home reports that the issue of an age restriction on social media is rousing “high emotions” among MPs, who are fielding a high volume of questions from parents, asking when the government intends to take action.

It quotes a letter from 60 MPs, who believe “the onus must be placed on technology platforms, not parents, to prevent underage access,” and cites recent More In Common polling which found that seven in 10 Britons support banning social media for users under 16.

Meanwhile, there is jockeying over who will ultimately take credit for the file. Prime Minister Keir Starmer only recently shifted his position to support age check legislation in line with Australia’s. He has now authorized Tech Secretary Liz Kendall to announce a consultation. But Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative opposition, has also seized on the issue, and Starmer’s Labour does not want to be seen ceding control of the issue to an opponent.

Prominent child online safety campaigner Baroness Beeban Kidron supports a prohibition. “We should treat tech companies like any other and make them subject to product safety and consumer rules including those that protect children,” she says. “But in the absence of that, then a ban makes sense.”

With growing support from both Labour and the Conservatives, the remaining opposition largely comes from digital rights groups. But a frequent ask is that the UK should take time to observe how Australia’s prohibition plays out. With every day, that request is fulfilled a little more, and the pushback to a proposal in the Australian model ebbs away.

Prohibitions work when people stop wanting the product

Tony Allen is perhaps better positioned than anyone else to comment on the efficacy of age assurance technology. Allen, who runs the Age Check Certification Scheme, also oversaw Australia’s Age Assurance Technology Trial, helped author the new international standard on age assurance, ISO/IEC 27566-1, and hosts the Global Age Assurance Standards Summit.

Stepping away from the feasibility of the technology, Allen has posted an article that looks at the history and mechanics of prohibition in general. Noting that age assurance proposals have broad support from parents and educators, he says “the question is not whether children deserve safeguarding (they do) but whether prohibition is an effective tool for achieving it.”

“History suggests that bans succeed or fail not on the basis of intention, but on whether they align with demand, supply, moral legitimacy and enforcement capacity. Prohibition does not remove human desire; it reallocates who fulfils it. Whether that reallocation reduces harm or increases it depends on how well policy engages with the underlying economics and psychology of behaviour.”

Allen breaks down the dynamics of supply and demand in play with any prohibition. Citing the examples provided by alcohol prohibition in the U.S., and tobacco regulation worldwide, Allen notes that “when a product remains in demand and legal supply is constrained or made unaffordable, criminal enterprise fills the gap, particularly where enforcement is under-resourced, uneven and alternatives are limited.”

“Even in cases where society agrees something is morally abhorrent, supply does not fully disappear. The production and distribution of child sexual abuse material is universally regarded as socially and morally repugnant, yet it still exists.”

“That is why it requires constant global enforcement, intelligence sharing and severe penalties. Prohibition alone is not enough; it must be reinforced by overwhelming social rejection and sustained coercive power.”

What if everyone decided social media is lame?

Prohibition, Allen says, works best when three factors align. First, the affected activity is “widely regarded as morally and socially unacceptable.” Second, it faces declining demand. And third, “enforcement reinforces social norms rather than trying to replace them.”

Prohibition, he says “only works while moral legitimacy endures. When social meaning shifts, bans decay into symbolism. Enforcement becomes discretionary. Compliance becomes optional.”

And what does all this mean for age assurance legislation for social media platforms? Allen argues that, because social media is so embedded and normalized – and because it is not yet broadly considered a net moral and societal negative – banning it is not the best idea.

“There is little evidence that young people themselves view social media as morally repugnant. On the contrary, it is where friendships are maintained, identities are explored and social status is negotiated. That does not mean it is harmless. It means it is meaningful.”

“This creates a problem for prohibition. Where demand remains strong, supply will be found.”

Here, Allen’s argument falters somewhat, in that it follows the logic that says bans push kids onto less regulated and more dangerous platforms. I.e., “the risk is not simply that prohibition fails. It is that it succeeds in changing who supplies children’s social connectivity.”

The difference is that, while a basket of plums and some ingenuity are all you need to produce alcohol, social media platforms have their value in the collective. Like Star Trek’s Borg, they are more powerful the more people they assimilate. And the appeal of platforms like Instagram and X is still strongly linked to perceived proximity to celebrity.

It is largely for this reason that, as Allen states, “early experience from Australia suggests that large-scale displacement has not yet occurred.” The fact is, kids can’t just jump from one major platform to another if they are all tightly regulated. And a small-scale chatroom or buggy new social platform is not going to serve as an adequate replacement for Instagram, if Taylor Swift is not there to post on it.

Allen understands this. “Social media only has value if others are present,” he says. “If enough children are absent, platforms become socially empty.” The caveat is that participation must fall below critical mass. “Partial compliance risks creating a two-tier system: visible, regulated users and invisible, unregulated ones.”

Ultimately, he says that for a social media ban to succeed, “the rule must be seen as protective rather than arbitrary – by adults and eventually by young people themselves. The behaviour must decline because it becomes socially empty, not merely harder. Offline alternatives must expand to absorb displaced time and attention. Age assurance must be credible without creating surveillance or perverse incentives. And users must not be driven into less regulated environments.”

“Prohibition is an instrument, not a strategy. It can support a broader social shift, but it cannot substitute for one. If governments choose to ban, they must do so with eyes open: not to look decisive, but to be effective.”

What if social media is lame?

Allen’s piece, in tandem with Julie Inman Grant’s insights, points to a few core truths. Age assurance laws will only work if they are thoroughly enforced. And social media will be tough to regulate while people still love it – in part because there aren’t many equivalent alternatives.

But the answer to the big question of What To Do About Social Media may only come with time. Silicon Valley has fashioned its products to be addictive, and sold them as both inevitable and indispensable. Yet they are neither. For proof, one need look no further than the business model they have largely replaced.

For years, it was gospel that newspapers were a cornerstone of society. They were the first thing you looked at in the morning, while you drank your coffee. According to the 2025 State of Local News report, between 2005 and 2025, almost 40 percent of all local U.S. newspapers vanished.

Empires fall, habits change and people find new ways to spend their time. And in the case of social media, there are signs the honeymoon is properly over. X has become an engine for generating nonconsensual spite porn and child sexual abuse material. Under U.S. ownership, TikTok is reportedly harvesting user data in new volumes, including precise location tracking. And everybody hates Mark Zuckerberg.

So, while regulating social media won’t be easy, social media barons themselves are making it easier to see that their products are well past their best-before date.

Article Topics

Age Check Certification Scheme (ACCS)  |  age verification  |  Australia age verification  |  eSafety Commissioner  |  regulation  |  social media  |  UK age verification