According to Gizmodo, Denmark’s Minister for Digital Affairs, Caroline Stage, has announced a complete ban on social media access for children under the age of 15. The ban won’t take effect immediately but is expected to be implemented within the next several months. Stage cited the “absurd amount of money” tech companies have while refusing to invest in child safety. Denmark plans to create an official age-verification app as part of the enforcement strategy. Australia is reportedly working on a similar effort. The minister emphasized they’re moving quickly but carefully to avoid creating loopholes for tech giants.
The enforcement nightmare
So here’s the immediate problem: how exactly do you enforce this? An age-verification app sounds nice in theory, but we’ve seen how this plays out before. Remember when platforms asked for your birth year during sign-up? Kids just lied. They’ll keep lying. Unless Denmark plans to integrate with some national ID system—which raises massive privacy concerns—this feels like trying to stop water with a sieve.
The bigger context
Denmark isn’t operating in a vacuum here. The World Health Organization has been sounding alarms about teens and screens for years. Recent Pew research shows most teens themselves acknowledge social media‘s negative effects, yet they can’t seem to disconnect. And the connection to mental health crises keeps getting stronger. But is a blanket ban the right solution?
Historical precedent isn’t great
Look, we’ve been here before with various forms of content restriction. Prohibition-style approaches rarely work as intended. They create black markets, push behavior underground, and often miss the root causes. Meanwhile, AI companies are already facing their own lawsuits over mental health impacts. Are we just playing whack-a-mole with technology?
The real problem nobody’s solving
Here’s the thing: this ban addresses symptoms, not causes. The fundamental issue is that social media platforms are designed to be addictive. Their business models depend on engagement at any cost. Until we tackle that core incentive structure, we’re just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Denmark’s move is bold, I’ll give them that. But without addressing the underlying design of these platforms, will it actually protect kids? Or just drive their usage further into the shadows?
