Headline, September 07 2026/ UNIVERSE : ''' SOCIAL MEDIA SOCKS* '''

UNIVERSE :

''' SOCIAL MEDIA SOCKS* '''

SOCKS - HEREIN - MEANS : TO HIT someone or something with a steel fist, most strikingly, in the face. !WOW! Tiny, but darned big on eternal ownership, value, democracy and equality, is exclusively owned, ever, by the students of the world.

PUSHING for social media bans despite flaws. Curbing use by children has support, but critics say the effort is ineffective.

META's $17 billion settlement in the United States last month added momentum to a swelling global effort to curb children's social media use. About 40 countries are debating, proposing or implementing limits on access to such platforms for young people.

Under the settlement, Meta agreed to strengthen its age verification tools, expand parental controls and impose other curbs to features that stoke mental health concerns.

The wave of regulatory activity across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas against social media companies has been driven by worries that their products harm children.

Supporters for the curbs have pointed to addictive design features that hook young brains and the proliferation of harmful content despite existing safeguards.

But the bans come with problems of their own. In Australia, the first country to enforce one, the measures have so far failed to keep children off social media.

Critics have also said that the bans limit freedom of expression and create privacy issues around age screening.

Despite these issues, initiatives to limit children's access to social media have expanded. Here are the points of contention in the push for restrictions :

Do the bans work ? By the most obvious measure, No. Early evidence indicates that social media bans for children in countries like Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia are ineffective at keeping young people off the platforms.

Children have generally been able to maintain access by using technical workarounds like VPNs or fooling age verification systems. Some governments have said that social media companies are not enforcing their bans.

In Australia, where a law is meant to have excluded children under 16 from some platforms since December, the government said that more than 60 percent of children who were surveyed reported using at least one age-restricted service three months after the ban started.

Some American parents spoke approvingly of the ban all the same, saying that it empowered them to better guide their children's activities. It could prevent younger children from joining the platforms, they said, even if it does not stop those who are already on them.

Indonesia, which in March began imposing its ban for children under 16, has faced hurdles in getting major tech companies to comply with its age verification mandate.

Malaysia, which started enforcing its own version in June, has also experienced friction with social media companies.

Experts at the University of Newcastle in Australia said that the country's policy had not led to a substantive change in the daily use among children. But the full effects of the legislation might take years to materialize, they said.

DO THESE BANS INFRINGE PEOPLE'S RIGHTS?

The Honour and Serving of the Latest Global Operational Research on Social Media, Bans and the Future, continues. !WOW! thanks John Yoon.

With most respectful dedication to the Leaders, Policy Makers, Parents, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.

See You all prepare for the great '' Constitutional Democratic Convention '' on !WOW! - for every subject in the world : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter X !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011 :

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