Around the World on the Social Media “Ban Wagon”: Rhetoric, Realities and Resistance

Since Australia’s Social Media Minimum Age Act came into force in December 2025, age-based restriction has quickly become the dominant policy response internationally to children and young people’s online safety, with comparable legislation now implemented or under consideration in over forty countries around the world (Tech Policy Institute Press, 2026). Fuelled by emotive campaigns underpinned by hotly contested scientific ‘evidence’, this viral policy making trend has unfolded despite significant concerns that bans may make children more unsafe online, and are neither practical nor enforceable. Moreover, debates have paid little attention to young people’s digital media practices, their capacity for circumvention, or the broader implications of prohibiting an entire generation’s access to platforms that are central to contemporary social, cultural and civic life.

This Roundtable assembles interdisciplinary experts in youth and digital sociology from different jurisdictions to discuss the current rhetorics, realities and resistances to restrictions on young people’s use of technology in particular contexts and internationally, focusing on the following topics:

• What counts as scientific ‘evidence’ in debates around social media bans and the efficacy of age-based restrictions
• The framing and reassertion of narratives of ‘youth’
• The role of the media, celebrity and politics in promoting restrictive approaches
• Tensions and opportunities to promote child and youth-centred policy making
• Methods for investigating and intervening in social media use by children and young people
• Implications of technology bans for health, education and equity
• The consequences of policy replication in different social, political, cultural contexts