The data on social media harms is mixed at best. We know for a fact fast food, cosmetic ads for girls, are strictly more harmful.

This is nothing more than speech control under the guise of "won't someone please think of the children"

> The data on social media harms is mixed at best. We know for a fact fast food, cosmetic ads for girls, are strictly more harmful.

True, but let me remind you that we didn't have conclusive data on smoke harm until the 50s, but this doesn't mean that smoking was not harmful before, nor that we were lacking any clue before coming to a conclusive study.

At the moment we don't have any conclusive study about e-cigarettes, but I'm sure you would never give kids e-cigarettes just because we don't have 30/40 years worth of data.

> This is nothing more than speech control under the guise of "won't someone please think of the children"

This is a bit more complex than this. Kids and adolescents online are targeted with all sort of techniques to leverage their attention in order to make money. I understand the speech control worry, and I agree up to a certain point, but I don't see how ignoring the problem makes it any better. What are the alternatives we have? I'm genuinely asking, not advocating for TINA. I have two kids and I see the effects of social media on them and on their friends.

Keep in mind that this cannot be offloaded to families, for multiple reasons: - many family just don't have enough data or knowledge to make informed decisions - until the network effect is in place, banning your kid from social media while all of their friend are online can be impractical and cruel - parent decisions can affect kids health and overall society outcome; allowing a wrong decision by the parents (because the society doesn't want to handle the problem) would be unfair for the kids and no wise for the society.

As in many aspects of life the best solution is neither white nor black, but a shade of grey, and is far from being perfect. Looking for a perfect solution is a waste of time, resources and unfair for those that are affected in the meanwhile.

I understand the concerns, and probably Australia approach is not the best, but it's also the first. We probably will need a period of adjustments to reach a sound solution.