Australia Just Banned Social Media for Anyone Under 16 — And the Real Question Is Why America Hasn’t

Australia just dropped one of the boldest tech-related laws of the decade: a nationwide ban on social media for anyone under the age of 16. No TikTok. No Instagram. No Snapchat. No endless, carefully engineered dopamine casino disguised as “content.” At first glance, it sounds extreme — like government overreach with an Australian accent. But the more you look at it, the harder it becomes to argue they’re wrong.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: the people who built the modern social media platforms — the engineers, the designers, the former Silicon Valley insiders — have been warning us for years. They didn’t whisper it. They didn’t hint. They straight-up confessed in The Social Dilemma: “Yes, we engineered these apps to hijack your brain chemistry. Yes, we built them like slot machines. Yes, we made them addictive on purpose.”And then? They admittedly banned their own kids from using the very systems they unleashed on our children.

If that doesn’t set off every alarm bell in your head, I don’t know what will.

Australia’s argument is simple: if something is this addictive, this manipulative, and this deeply linked to spiraling youth mental health issues, then maybe kids shouldn’t have unlimited access to it. We regulate food, medicine, alcohol, fireworks, climbing equipment, dangerous hobbies, and even fidget toys. But when it comes to hyper-targeted psychological manipulation technology created by trillion-dollar corporations? Suddenly everyone becomes a freedom philosopher.

Meanwhile, childhood is disappearing. Kids aren’t bored — they’re overstimulated. Kids aren’t playing — they’re scrolling. Kids aren’t building social skills — they’re building dependency on algorithms that reward insecurity, outrage, comparison, and compulsive behavior. They go to bed wired, wake up anxious, and spend their most formative years being shaped by digital environments that even adults struggle to control.

And Australia finally said: enough.

Will something like this pass in America? Probably not tomorrow. This is the land of First Amendment absolutism, custody battles over iPads, and parents suing school districts because their child couldn’t use TikTok in class. But the data doesn’t lie. The science is stacking up. Every psychologist, every developmental expert, every journalist covering youth mental health sees the same trend: this stuff is harming kids — deeply, consistently, and at scale.

Maybe the bigger question isn’t “Is Australia going too far?”Maybe it’s “Why is America still pretending nothing’s wrong?”

Because forcing kids to go outside, get bored, climb trees, scrape their knees, build social skills, and experience reality without algorithmic supervision isn’t tyranny — it’s literally childhood. And if Silicon Valley refuses to let their own children anywhere near these apps… why are we handing them to 10-year-olds with unlimited data plans?

Sometimes protecting freedom means protecting people from the systems that control them. And right now? Social media is controlling kids way more than kids are controlling social media.

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