Social Media Ban: "They Will Find a Way Around It"

Much of the concerns raised so far about the proposals have been about civil liberties and government overreach. But there are other, more prosaic, unintended consequences to consider too.

"Every young person I have spoken to has told me the same thing: they will find a way around it," says Paddy Crump, campaigns director at Flippgen, a youth-led non-profit group that goes into schools to try and help young people build healthier relationships with the online world.

That is certainly what seems to have happened in Australia, where seven out of 10 children aged under 16 who had a social media account before it introduced its ban in December 2025, still have some access, according to a report by the country's e-safety commission.

Crump argues that the measures offer "false hope dressed up as protection" and will simply shift young people's online behaviour elsewhere: including to smaller digital platforms which fly beneath the radar of regulatory scrutiny.

"There are some pretty dangerous places for children and teens that make Instagram look like Disneyland," notes Ari Lightman, professor of digital media and marketing at Carnegie Mellon University.

Social media as a lifeline?

And critics of the proposals warn of other unintended side-effects. Crump fears the ban could make young people less likely to seek support for online harms if they do encounter them, as well as isolating them from communities and information.

One teenager sent me a message to say that without social media they would not still be here: the friendships they had made online had given them reasons to continue living. Some parents with SEND children say social media and watching videos is their primary way of engaging with the world.

An online e-petition is calling on the government not to ban social media for under 16s "because for many young people social media is how they communicate with their friends. Some people view social media as a lifeline". It has gained more than 100,000 signatories in the past few days.

Home education message boards are also lighting up with parents concerned about how to navigate the ban while teaching their children away from schools.

"I learned to tie a bow tie by watching a tutorial on YouTube," says Crawford. "What if you're an 11-year old that needs to wear a tie to school for the first time? What if you want to know how to apply makeup and there's no-one at home to show you? What if you're worried about your upcoming GCSE exams and want to check how to answer a question on bearings? This is what a ban on YouTube takes away - the ability to learn."

Older generations might retort that they managed to acquire all this knowledge without the help of the internet. But that ignores how fundamentally teenagers have become accustomed to using not just YouTube but also other social media platforms as a research tool. SEO expert Mehwish Malik from Link Builder says the younger end of Gen Z (aged 14-29) use TikTok as a search engine: their preferred gateway to information and to trusted brands.

So how can all this be addressed? The government says this is for the tech companies to figure out. "If YouTube wants to come up with something that's an intermediate option that allows that young person who wants to watch history documentaries to watch them but isn't then getting all of these short reels, that's a different proposition," said education secretary Bridget Phillipson on the BBC's Newscast.

Industry sources argue that technically it's not that simple to set something like this up. "Ask the government!" messaged one when I posed the question about how it might work.

Parents could of course just choose to sit down and watch something with their child using their own accounts if they have the time and willingness: YouTube claims that half of UK users watch its videos on the TV at home, with multiple sign-ins available.

"As I see it, the main issue here is that YouTube isn't social media," says Crawford. "YouTube is the 2026 version of television."

- Author: Zoe Kleinman, BBC

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