In Texas, a lawmaker has recently introduced a bill that would completely ban anyone under 18 from using any social media whatsoever, and require age verification via photo ID for anyone over 18 to open a social media account. And Twenty-One Debunked opposes this bill for the following reasons:
- First and foremost, it is extremely ageist and a slippery slope. And what's to stop them from arbitrarily raising the age limit even higher?
- It is far too broad an overreach, and throws the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. Social media does have a dark side that we all should be aware of, but a blanket ban on everyone under 18 is NOT the way to deal with it.
- Young people ages 13-17 are not adults, but they are not entirely children either. There needs to be far more nuance than this sort of blanket ban.
- It is yet another intrusive instance of Big Brother, that also affects people over 18 as well.
- There is no obvious grandfather clause for anyone already over 13 but under 18 who currently already has social media accounts.
- It will disadvantage people under 18 relative to people over 18 when it comes to networking for jobs (keep in mind that LinkedIn would count as social media under this bill).
- It will simply drive people under 18 onto the Dark Web instead, where there are NO rules or limits of any kind, period. If they are tech savvy enough to set up and regularly use their own Facebook, Twitter, or TikTok account, they are also savvy enough to download Tor and then go down a far, far worse rabbit hole of horrors.
Thus, this ageist bill is a massive government overreach that will do far more harm than good on balance. If we must have any hard age limits for social media by enforceable law, and that is a VERY big "if", they should not be any higher than 16 at most. Age verification is OK in principle, but it needs to be done very carefully to avoid unintended consequences in terms of privacy and such.
So what should we do instead? Well, we could adopt the data privacy laws that the European Union currently has. We could tax the "attention economy" by taxing the advertising that serves as the business model of Big Tech. We could put regulations on the algorithms that Big Tech uses to manipulate its users of all ages and keep them hooked. We could investigate Big Tech for antitrust violations. We could, you know, actually educate young people on social media literacy, ideally starting long before they go on such sites. We could do a smartphone buyback (similar to gun buybacks) for all ages. And we could also, you know, enforce existing age limits (typically 13) that are clearly NOT being followed in any meaningful sense, honored far more in the breach.
We could do all that and more. But that would make too much sense, right?
To all lawmakers: please vote a HARD NO on this bill and any similar bills. And to all parents and other adults reading this: be a mentor, not a tormentor.
