Shit idea in my opinion to blanket ban it. Browsing best of Redditor updates way back when, so many posts were kids looking for an outside perspective on their family — e.g. to recognise signs of abuse; to ask advice on coming out; to ask how to buy contraceptives or to have an abortion; how to deal with suicidal thoughts or bullying. Kids (particularly those that are vulnerable) need a safe space to be able to ask those kinds of questions anonymously, and get answers. Trying to ban social media outright in that age category will just lead to unsafe workarounds.

I wonder if we need a body like the bbc for a social media age to produce a platform with the public good rather than profit in mind.

Is it maybe a bit too early to learn the lessons from Australia's attempt at this? Give it two or three years then do a proper study.

In the meantime why don't... oh I don't know... you middle class fucks actually do some parenting of your children? Just a thought.

Thinking back to my own youth when the problem was teenagers talking on the phone for hours at a time, I wonder why we didn't just force the phone company to ban young people from using telephones.

Can we round it up to under-30s?

Raising the age from 13 to 16 isn't even that big of a change surely?