So, you haven't identified any actual problems with them being on social media though. For example, were this lament that parenting is hard written 50 years ago:

> As the parent of a teenager affected by this ban (plus one who has aged past it): I wish that it had been in place 8-10 years ago, before either of my kids got introduced to Rock n' Roll. We tried to be reasonably conservative in their introduction to music and lyrics, on the rationale that it would do them no harm to delay using those for a couple of years through their early brain development. The real difficulty turned out to be the network effect of their peers having access to Rock n' Roll, which increased the social pressure (and corresponding social exclusion) to be dealing with vinyl. Not having access to The Stones, AC/DC, etc. at that point meant that they were effectively out-group, which is a Big Deal for a teenager.

> We ended up allowing them a radio earlier than we'd have liked but imposed other controls (time and space restrictions, an expectation of parental audits, etc.) These controls were imperfect, and the usual issues occurred. My assessment is that it was a net negative for the mental health of one child and neutral for the other.

I'm being a bit facetious here but my point is that everyone who is in support of this kind of Parenting-as-a-Service is not identifying any real issue the government should concern itself with. Just that kids are doing something new and sometimes scary and gosh it's just hard being a parent when they don't listen.

> I'm being a bit facetious here...

Maybe just don't do that? It's never helpful in good-faith discussions and just indicates a lack of empathy and maybe a lack of understanding of the actual issue being discussed.

> So, you haven't identified any actual problems with them being on social media though.

The problems GP raised seem pretty clear to me. Could gives us some examples of what you would consider to be "actual problems" in this context?

> Just that kids are doing something new and sometimes scary...

Any sane parent wouldn't send their kids to learn to ride a bicycle on the open road and without any supervision. You'd find a park or an empty lot somewhere, let them test it out, assess their ability to deal with potential dangers and avoid harming others at the same time, and let them be on their own once they are able to give you enough confidence that they can handle themselves most of the time without your help.

The problem with today's social media for children is that that there is no direct supervision or moderation of any kind. Like many have pointed out, social media extends to things like online games as well, and the chance that you will see content that are implicitly or explicitly unsuitable for children is extremely high. Just try joining the Discord channels of guilds of any online game to see for yourself.

Not all things new and scary come with a moderate to high risk of irreparable harm.

Its not parenting as a service. Its not even in the same world as rock in roll. Do you think its ok to have smoking, gambling and sex ads shown on tv during the afterschool 3pm-5pm timeslot? Social media is effectively that x100 because TV ads followed advertising restrictions.

On social media kids will be subjected to undisclosed advertising for all kinds of products legal and illegal. They will be directly targeted and manipulated into real world harm situations and mental manipulation into harmful mindsets.

Most of this cannot be prevented by "being a watchful parent". If your kid watches andrew tate and you see and put a restriction youtube will recommend them a tate adjacent channel or one of the 1million alts that posts clips. Same for tiktok, X and Instagram.The only control you have is to ban them from using the platform which is a roundabout way of achieving the same thing.

Sigh, I'll bite (even though I know I shouldn't, and it's pointless).

> So, you haven't identified any actual problems with them being on social media

Anonymous cyber bullying (multiple times), performative social exclusion (multiple times), anonymous death threats (twice), deepfake porn with their faces spliced in (twice).

Your straw-man example is absurd and TBH it comes across as patronising. I'm trying to avoid assumptions, but it reads like someone who hasn't needed to grapple with this issue personally as a primary carer. Apologies if that isn't the case; everyone has their own view for what parenting should be.

Somehow we've seen fit (as a society) to regulate the minimum age for sex & marriage, obtaining alcohol, acquiring a vehicle licence, etc. We (as a society) recognise that there are good & bad tradeoffs to these activities and have regulated freedoms around these (primarily via age). Somehow, our society hasn't spontaneously regressed into North Korea.