Governments across Europe, Asia, and Australia have introduced age-based bans restricting children’s use of social media platforms, aiming to reduce online harms. However, emerging evidence reveals these bans largely fail to prevent underage access or diminish harmful content exposure. Experts are now urging regulators to pursue a different approach: a tax on harmful amplification designed to realign platform incentives toward promoting user welfare.
What Happened
Various governments have enacted or proposed restrictions limiting children’s access to social media. Australia implemented an under-16 ban in December 2025, while the UK plans to introduce similar restrictions for under-16s by spring 2027. France is moving to legislate protections for under-15s, and other countries including Slovenia, Poland, Spain, Denmark, and Malaysia have comparable measures advancing. A recent evaluation published in The BMJ assessed Australia’s regime three months after enactment, finding that 85 percent of under-16 users continued accessing restricted platforms, with a third encountering no age verification. Instead of reducing exposure, attention was shifting toward less-regulated digital spaces such as messaging apps and AI companions.
Key Facts
These age-based restrictions are grounded in national internet safety policies and laws but largely focus on regulating user access rather than platform behavior. The platforms targeted include major social media services optimized with recommender systems that prioritize engagement time over user wellbeing. According to the UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 and the EU Digital Services Act, platforms face obligations including age verification, user reporting mechanisms, and systemic risk assessments, with regulatory bodies able to impose fines for noncompliance.
Despite these measures, the optimization algorithms driving platform content amplification remain unaltered, perpetuating harmful externalities — negative effects experienced by users and third parties but not borne by firms. For example, UK Ofcom estimates that 72 percent of children aged 8 to 12 bypass safety controls to access adult-tier platforms known for surfacing harmful self-harm and eating disorder content. Moreover, the UK Internet Watch Foundation reported a massive surge in AI-generated child sexual abuse material circulation.
What This Means
These findings highlight a fundamental mismatch between regulatory tools and the sources of harm. Age-based bans and duty-of-care regimes regulate consumer behavior or prohibit specific conduct but do not alter the financial incentives of platforms to maximize engagement by amplifying harmful content. The practical effect is limited: children can circumvent age restrictions easily, and platforms continue to profit from engagement-driven models that externalize societal costs.
Shifting regulation to directly target the economic incentives behind harmful amplification could provide a more effective solution. Proposals include a “Digital Harm Levy” — a tax calibrated to measurable harmful content exposure rates on platforms. This Pigouvian-style tax would charge platforms based on the volume of harmful content they amplify, encouraging redesigns of recommender systems to reduce exposure without restricting free speech or requiring content removal.
Such an approach aligns platform costs with societal harm, incentivizing firms to optimize for user welfare rather than pure engagement. It also leverages existing taxation structures, such as the UK’s Digital Services Tax framework, and audit mechanisms akin to those required by the EU’s Digital Services Act, making implementation feasible.
Background
The impetus for age bans on social media arises from growing concerns about the mental health, safety, and wellbeing of children online. Existing digital safety laws, like the UK’s Online Safety Act and the EU Digital Services Act, impose duties of care on platforms to protect vulnerable users and mitigate systemic risks. However, evaluations suggest these laws have so far failed to address the root financial drivers of harmful content amplification.
Economic theory identifies this as a market failure characterized by externalities—costs generated by firms’ recommender algorithms that are not accounted for in their business models. Past analogous interventions targeting producer incentives include tobacco taxes and carbon pricing, both of which successfully reduced harmful behaviors by making them more costly to sustain.
What Comes Next
While the UK’s under-16 restriction is slated for implementation in spring 2027, Australia’s age ban is already active, with ongoing studies evaluating its impact. Legislative proposals in France and other countries remain under development. Meanwhile, experts advocate for adopting a Digital Harm Levy or similar economic instruments that target harmful amplification directly, though no government has formally committed to such a tax yet. The institutional infrastructure for monitoring and taxing harmful content exposure is emerging, particularly under the EU’s regulatory framework, pointing to possible future developments in digital policy.
Sources
This article is based on reporting and publicly available information from the following sources:
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