Comment: Leaving social media platform providers to police and regulate themselves is toothless folly

A MOVE to ban social media for children appears to be gathering momentum with news that Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez today (Tuesday), announced his government will ban under-16s from accessing platforms such as TikTok, X, Snapchat and Instagram.

“Platforms will be required to implement effective age verification systems - not just check boxes, but real barriers that work,” Sánchez said during an address to the plenary session of the World Government Summit in Dubai. “Today our children are exposed to a space they were never meant to navigate alone ... We will protect minors from the ‘Digital Wild West’.”

Should the prohibition be rubberstamped by the country’s Council of Ministers next week, it will expressly prohibit minors from registering on platforms.Spain is one of a number of European countries hardening their approach to online access for children. Denmark has plans to ban under-15s, the French government is pushing to have a similar ban in place as soon as September. In Portugal, under-16s would be required to obtain parental consent to access social media.

So where are we at in Ireland? Last week, Tanaiste Simon Harris was particularly bullish about the possibility of introducing a ban when he said the "era of self-regulation is now over."

That wouldn't be a bad thing at this stage. Currently in Ireland...

- Social media companies must not promote acts of terror, cyberbullying, self-harm, or incite violence or hatred. (The algorithms don't appear to be paying much attention to that).

- More robust parental controls are required for guardians of children under 16, and age-verification tools for pornographic content are mandatory. (Most 13 year-olds can run absolute rings around even the most tech savvy parents in this regard.)

- Platforms must have mechanisms to allow users to flag potentially illegal or harmful content and companies may face fines of up to €20 million or 10 per cent of their annual turnover for non-compliance with the Online Safety Code. (For context, at the end of 2025, Elon Musk's X was fined €120m by EU tech regulators for breaching EU online content rules. The company's worldwide ad revenues alone topped $2.2bn).

So, leaving social media platform providers to police and regulate themselves, is toothless folly.

Cue Tanaiste Harris again.

"We need to actually see a bit of baring of teeth here. This can’t be the wild west anymore. I believe we need to get to a point where if you’re under the age of 16, you can’t be on social media."

Australia has already embraced a ban for under-16s with mixed results including teens finding innovative ways around the lockout and social media platforms pushing back arguing saying the ban is inefficient and curtails freedom of speech.

One way or another, the ‘Digital Wild West’ needs taming and a stronger sheriff if a properly enforced ban is the only way of keeping the bad guys out of town, than bring it on. But it does beg another question. While we might be trying to protect our children from an avalanche of harmful content, what are we going to do about the legion of anonymous adult online purveyors of hate, porn, misogyny, racism already roaming free in this Digital Wild West?

- This Comment piece was published first in the paper on Tuesday 3rd Feb.