Social Media only from age 16: A wrong turn

Teenagers and creators are smart. When they encounter limits, they are expected to adhere to rules, even bans, they find other ways to achieve their goals if they are important to them. This is apparently also happening in Australia right now. And it shows that the social media ban for those under 16 is at least missing the mark.

Since Wednesday, thousands of young people no longer have accounts on the common social media platforms. And with them, many followers of influencers and creators have also dropped off. Both sides are complaining about the loss.

Many creators have built a community over the years. For most, this is a full-time job. Anyone who belittles creators should try to deliver content every day that is exciting enough for thousands of people to follow. This includes video editing, image processing, preparation, scriptwriting, talent, and a lot of effort and leisure to make everything look so nice and easy.

An opinion by Eva-Maria Weiß

Eva-Maria Weiß studied communication science at the University of Vienna, specializing in media psychology, and has worked as a journalist ever since.

Followers are the currency: The number also determines how much money creators receive – either from cooperation partners or through displayed advertising in and between videos, reels, shorts, and posts. This varies depending on the platform.

Creators are now writing newsletters

You don't need to feel sorry for them now; creators are generally well-paid. But because creators are particularly creative, they already have an idea of how to win back their fans and followers. They simply switch platforms and send them emails. After all, emails and newsletters are not banned. And creators as well as the advertising industry are flexible and adapt quickly to the new conditions.

This means that teenagers under 16 will likely still be bombarded with advertising just as much as they were on social media before. This is not the only problem with the platforms, but the distorted advertising world is certainly also a problem that affects the mental health of children and adolescents. At least in this regard, the ban is already proving to be quite ineffective. Furthermore, the newly found channel would initially escape all control. There are no regulations for newsletters in the same way that there are at least regulations for social media platforms in the EU.

Rules for social media – platforms are responsible

The path taken by the EU seems more sensible to me. It holds social media companies responsible, so they must take measures to protect young people. Rules apply, although their implementation sometimes falters. We should work on that.

For example, teenagers under 16 are actually not allowed to use social media without their parents' permission. In practice, this is unfortunately rarely considered. Personalized advertising is also only very limitedly allowed for minors – this follows from the GDPR.

The Digital Services Act states that platform providers must protect minors. This also sounds very vague at first, but there are already approaches that would simply need to be enforced – which would certainly also need to be enforced more rigorously by regulators towards the providers. These include so-called teen accounts, which everyone (must) offer, but which are not mandatory for young people so far. Parents who are concerned that their children might be contacted by adults with malicious intent should take care of these settings. With teen accounts, there is no possibility of contact unless both accounts follow each other.

With teen accounts, screen times are also limited, parents can see what their children are doing, and content is partially adapted. There is still a lot of room for improvement, but there are already many possibilities. Meta suggests that age verification should already exist at the device level, which would then apply to all apps and services – teenagers would then, for example, no longer have access to apps for deepfakes or questionable games. Sensible. If Meta also deleted all hate comments, which are actually forbidden anyway, we would be a step closer to the goal of a better social media world.

We should not ban, but rather consider how we can make social media helpful and safe, what we need to give children to ensure they are doing well: for 15-year-olds just as for 16-year-olds, and actually also for 45-year-olds who are too often on LinkedIn.

Only when we have exhausted this, educated people, parents are taking care of their children's basic online behavior, and we still find that social media is a problem, can we talk about a ban again. However, in the discussion, we should not forget that the platforms are not an exclusive moloch. Young people find inspiration there, they find like-minded people for even the rarest peculiarities, they find content that interests them, that helps them learn, that is political, and that is sometimes just hilarious.

(emw)