HackerNews used to be full of moderately smart people. This is basically Reddit level comments.

Think for a moment instead of just accepting whatever the media is telling you to think.

How many social networks are there?

Are some of those decentralised?

Will kids move to unmoderated underground ones in response to this?

Will the government expand these laws now that it achieved a foothold?

Parenting and teaching your kids to think and understand how the world works is how you really solve the problems. Not building weak fences and encouraging government over-reach. Raising and guiding your kids is YOUR responsibility, not the governments.

All this came about because some absolute slog of a parent had their kid kill themselves and blamed social media. Where the hell was he while their kid struggled?!

Obviously you have no kids or live in a remote cabin isolated from society.

Banning social media in principle is like banning the sales of alcohol and other drugs to underage people. Those bans are good for society irrespective of your parenting ability. It helps that those negative things are less accessible to the vulnerable.

Now, how the social media ban is effected in practice is a different point. And people here are rightfully skeptical of ID verification and such things, since that opens the door for way more surveillance outside social media.