The Global Crackdown On Kids And Social Media

Welcome to Memorandum Deep Dives. In this series, we go beyond the headlines to examine the decisions shaping our digital future. 🗞️

This weekend, we’re examining how a single book helped trigger one of the fastest global policy shifts in recent tech history: the movement to ban or restrict children’s access to social media. What began as a domestic law in Australia has quickly evolved into a coordinated wave of legislation across Europe, parts of Asia, and multiple U.S. states—reshaping how governments think about childhood in the digital age.

For years, social platforms expanded under the assumption that access equals opportunity and connection equals progress. Now, that premise is being challenged at the highest levels of government. Sparked in part by Jonathan Haidt’s ‘The Anxious Generation’, policymakers are reframing social media not as a neutral tool, but as an environmental risk requiring structural limits. What looks like a youth safety debate is a deeper reckoning over platform responsibility, parental authority, data privacy, and the architecture of the modern internet, and the experiment is unfolding in real time.

How the Anxious Generation fueled a global social media crackdown

There exists a unique relationship between literary works and technology, often reflected in the names of tech companies and the products they aspire to create. Companies like Palantir, Oracle, Anduril, and even Yahoo trace their names to literary works. Similarly, the idea of mobile phones, tablet computers, video calls, and the metaverse was first conceptualized by writers before being brought to life by researchers and engineers.

In 2026, the relationship between literary works and technology has taken on a new meaning, and it may be the first time that a writer’s words have inspired legislators to limit the use of a technology rather than spur its creation.

In March 2024, Jonathan Haidt released a book titled The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. And within a couple of years of his work becoming publicly available, the world is rethinking the relationship between children and social media.

Australia writes the template

In December 2025, Australia became the first country in the world to ban children under 16 from creating social media accounts. And to ensure the ban was taken seriously, the country backed it with the threat of fines of up to A$49.5M for platforms that fail to comply.

Within a few weeks, 4.7M accounts were deactivated, and within months, other countries began lining up to follow suit.

Driving the decision were rising suicide and self-harm rates among young Australians, a media campaign called ‘Let Them Be Kids’, and the bipartisan support for the ban. However, beyond the campaigns and support, there was a personal moment that prompted the Premier of South Australia, Peter Malinauskas, to fast-track the legislation and ensure the ban was passed.

According to a CBS News report, Malinauskas said the idea was sparked at home after his wife finished reading The Anxious Generation. After closing the book, she turned to him and urged action, warning about the effects of social media on their four children.

Within months, what began as a private conversation evolved into a national political push, ultimately winning the backing of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The law is now in effect, with major platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, and Facebook moving to block users aged 16 and under, marking a decisive shift in how Australia governs children’s digital lives.

Beyond banning kids from social media platforms, Australia’s law also shifted the burden of ensuring kids’ safety away from their families and onto platforms that had so far avoided that responsibility.

As per the law, parents cannot grant permission, and there is no ‘kid-friendly’ or limited version of the app. Additionally, if a platform falls under the rules, children under 16 are not allowed to have accounts. The responsibility for enforcing this policy sits squarely with the tech companies, making it a true hard ban rather than a set of parental controls.

To make the restrictions work, the law gives tech companies the flexibility to decide how they verify users’ ages. And though there were early problems with teenagers merely moving to different platforms instead of quitting social media, regulators said the early trends alone do not reveal how lasting such shifts will be.

Now that Australia has set the template, regulators in other parts of the world are also moving quickly to implement similar restrictions.

Europe piles on

Europe’s reaction to youth social media bans has gathered momentum with surprising speed. France was the first to move, when its lower house voted overwhelmingly in January 2026 to block children under 15 from social media. President Emmanuel Macron framed the measure as a matter of protecting childhood, arguing that children’s minds should not be treated as commodities. The proposal is now under review in the Senate, with lawmakers aiming to start in September 2026.

Spain is following closely in France’s footsteps, with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announcing plans to prohibit social media use for those under 16 and to introduce criminal liability for platform executives who fail to remove illegal content. He also pointed to a growing alliance of European countries backing stricter digital rules, naming France, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Portugal, and Spain as part of what he called a coalition of the digitally willing.

In Germany, the governing parties, the CDU and SPD, have aligned around a three-level framework that would completely block children under 14, place 14 and 15-year-olds on heavily restricted versions of platforms without algorithmic feeds or addictive design features, and require users aged 16 and above to enable recommendation algorithms rather than receiving them by default.

Denmark has also earmarked €21.4M for 14 child online safety initiatives and plans an under-15 ban as early as mid-2026. Similarly, Portugal’s parliament approved its bill on 12 February; Slovenia, Finland, and Greece are advancing their own proposals. The UK has said it will consult on whether to implement a ban similar to Australia’s. Malaysia plans to implement an under-16 ban this year.

At the same time, even across the Atlantic, American legislators are fighting a two-front battle—one against the Big Tech lobbying, and another against the Federal unwillingness to make any decisive moves.

America’s fragmented response

As such, action has been at the state level, with at least 17 states enacting some form of restriction. Virginia’s law, effective 1 January 2026, limits under-16s to one hour per day per social media platform unless a parent opts to change the setting. Nebraska mandates parental consent for under-18s. New York’s SAFE for Kids Act restricts algorithmic feeds and nighttime notifications for minors.

However, even as legislators continue to push for restrictions, not everyone agrees that this is the right approach to teen health.

The civil liberties counterargument

On 23 February 2026, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights issued a pointed statement: “Banning children’s access to social media shifts the responsibility for safety from the platforms that create the environment to the children who navigate it. States should require platforms to prevent and mitigate risks to children’s rights by design and by default.”

And they are not alone; the Electronic Frontier Foundation has framed the global trend as a surveillance risk, arguing that age verification laws create identity-checking infrastructure that threatens the privacy and anonymity of all internet users. The data security concern is not hypothetical: Australia’s own recent data breach history includes incidents at Qantas, MediSecure, and Medibank. As such, despite the risks, platforms are being asked to collect, process, and then delete biometric and identity data for millions of users.

Then there is the science, or as some would argue, the lack of it, backing the bans.

Support for youth social media restrictions often points to the U.S. Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory, which found that nearly 95 % of teens use social platforms and that heavy use is associated with higher risks of anxiety and depression. Studies showing that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day online report poorer mental health have strengthened this argument. At the same time, Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation helped popularize the concerns among policymakers, but some do not agree with the book’s claims. Some, including Researcher Candice L. Odgers, argue that the causal link Haidt claims “is not supported by science,” and that the research is primarily correlational, not causal.

Even as the debate plays out in academic circles, the legislatures have made their moves and intentions clear. Meanwhile, Australia has commissioned a multi-year study with mental health experts to track the ban’s long-term impact, making it the first real-world test of whether restricting access actually improves youth wellbeing.

A global experiment in real time

An idea first proposed in a scientific journal and popularized by a literary work has been convincing enough to warrant the passage of laws based on its findings. What began as a single law in Canberra is now a global experiment. The platforms are watching, the children are watching. And so, for once, are the governments.