1. Australia, several U.S. states, and other governments have moved to set minimum ages for social media accounts or to require platforms to verify users' ages before granting access. Supporters argue these laws protect young people from addictive design features, exploitation, and mental health harms, while critics warn that age verification and minimum-age mandates threaten privacy, free expression, and parents' authority to make decisions for their own families.

Carefully read the following six sources, including the introductory information for each source. Write an essay that synthesizes material from at least three of the sources and develops your position on how policymakers should weigh youth safety, privacy, and free expression when regulating social media age verification and minimum-age laws.

Australian Government Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts. "Social Media Minimum Age." Fact sheet, Jan. 2026, www.infrastructure.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/social-media-minimum-age-fact-sheet-january-2026.pdf.

The Australian Government has taken world-leading action to reduce online harms experienced by young Australians by introducing a minimum age of 16 to access social media. This means Australians under 16 can’t have accounts on age-restricted platforms because they enable algorithms that recommend harmful or inappropriate content, infinite scrolling and other features designed to keep users continuously engaged. Delaying access to social media helps protect the health and wellbeing of young people and gives them extra time to develop real world connections and digital literacy skills before they join global platforms.

Social media platforms now need to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under 16 from having a social media account. The law is intended to capture social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, X, Facebook, YouTube and others – not parents, carers or children. Under 16s can still see publicly available social media content that doesn’t require being logged into an account, but are less likely to be exposed to some of the harmful design features of social media – such as predatory algorithms. Under 16s continue to have access to messaging services (such as WhatsApp and Messenger), online gaming, professional networking and development services, and services that are primarily for the purposes of education and health support. Australia’s eSafety Commissioner will continue to update the list of platforms it considers age-restricted. Check the eSafety website for the latest advice.

There are 3 types of age assurance technology that age-restricted social media platforms can use to identify if a person is under 16: • Age inference: uses existing data to infer a person’s age, such as how long they’ve held the account, their interests and networks. • Age estimation: analyses a person’s characteristics, like their facial features, voice and language, to estimate their age. • Age verification: uses a person’s year or date of birth, typically from official documents – for example, a passport. Age-restricted social media platforms are encouraged to take a layered approach, and no Australian can be forced to use government ID to prove their age online. Age-restricted social media platforms must comply with Australian law to protect the data provided to assure a person’s age.

The responsibility is on the social media platforms, not parents, carers or children, to follow this law. Age-restricted social media platforms may face penalties of up to $49.5 million AUD (150,000 penalty units) if they don’t take reasonable steps to prevent under 16s from having accounts on their platforms. The penalty will be determined by the courts.

There is growing evidence to suggest that at 16, young people are generally outside the most vulnerable adolescent stage. The age was endorsed by Australia’s National Cabinet on 8 November 2024 following extensive consultation.

The Online Safety Act 2021 (the Act) was amended in November 2024 to introduce a social media minimum age framework (SMMA), providing greater protections for young Australians at a critical stage of their development.

Gottfried, Jeffrey, and Monica Anderson. "Majority of Americans Support Banning Social Media for Kids Under 16." Pew Research Center, 1 July 2026, www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/07/01/majority-of-americans-support-banning-social-media-for-kids-under-16/.

NetChoice. "NetChoice Wins Permanent Block of Louisiana Age Verification Law, Protecting Free Speech and Parental Rights." NetChoice, 15 Dec. 2025, netchoice.org/netchoice-wins-permanent-block-of-louisiana-age-verification-law-protecting-free-speech-and-parental-rights/.

BATON ROUGE, La.—Today, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana granted NetChoice’s motion for summary judgment in NetChoice v. Murrill , striking down Louisiana’s Act 456. The court ruled that the law, which conditioned Louisianans’ ability to access protected speech online on their willingness to hand over sensitive government ID, violates the First Amendment.

In a decisive ruling, Judge John W. deGravelles found that the state cannot use a “free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed” and that the law was both unconstitutionally vague and failed to meet the high burden required to restrict free expression.

“Today, the First Amendment prevailed in Louisiana,” said Paul Taske, Co-Director of NetChoice’s Litigation Center. “The government lacks authority to restrict access to lawful speech it does not like. As the district court recognized, the First Amendment forbids the government from posting ID-checks outside the library door-–and the same is true when it comes to social media.” Taske continued, “Louisiana’s law would have done more than chill speech. It would have created a massive privacy risk for Louisianans like those playing out in real time in countries without a First Amendment, like the UK. Parents, not the government, are best suited to decide how their families use the internet.”

This permanent injunction joins a growing list of federal court victories for NetChoice, following similar rulings in Ohio ( NetChoice v. Yost ) and Arkansas ( NetChoice v. Griffin ).

As the Court noted in its opinion, while the state has an interest in protecting minors, it cannot do so by “foreclos[ing] access to social media altogether,” which prevents users from “engaging in the legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights.” The Court emphasized that the law was “wildly underinclusive” and “vastly overinclusive,” ultimately usurping parental authority rather than supporting it.

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HOW WE GOT HERE: Louisiana lawmakers, like those in other states, sought to address concerns about minors’ online safety by stripping away the constitutional rights of all citizens. As NetChoice argued from the beginning, forcing citizens to surrender private information to access the internet is a “gift to hackers and a nightmare for cybersecurity.” Today’s ruling validates that unconstitutional laws protect no one.

WHAT IT MEANS FOR POLICYMAKERS: This decision sends a clear message to policymakers nationwide that legislative good intentions do not override the Constitution. Laws that attempt to restrict access to speech or discriminate based on the content of a website will continue to be struck down. NetChoice urges lawmakers to abandon these unconstitutional mandates and instead focus on educational solutions and empowering parents with the tools that already exist to manage their families’ online experiences.

NetChoice remains committed to defending free expression and free enterprise across the United States.

Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Age Verification Won't \"Protect the Children.\"" EFF, updated 9 July 2026, www.eff.org/pages/age-verification-wont-protect-children.

We all want young people to be safe, but age verification is decidedly not the silver bullet solution to young people's online safety that regulators and corporations want you to think it is.

First, age verification mandates diminish the safety that comes with online privacy.

For decades, we've rightfully taught young people this simple rule: don’t share personal information with strangers. But age verification laws fly in the face of that longstanding internet safety norm by requiring users to hand over their real names, real faces, real proof of their real life identities—and in some cases, their parents’ identities too—just to use basic online services. These mandates will make it harder to distinguish between legitimate services and scams, creating new opportunities for fraud and identity theft. If adults struggle to tell the difference, how can we expect our children—whose data is even more valuable to data thieves—to fare any better?

Second, age verification mandates threaten the safety that comes with empowering young people’s autonomy and allowing them broad access to important information.

Young people across the world have the right to freedom of expression. In the United States, that means their right to access information and to communicate with others is protected by the First Amendment. Cutting off young people’s access to the internet will not only erase their important voices and perspectives, but could also impact their development, ability to form offline relationships, and autonomy. After all, social media sites are not just for entertainment; they provide space for young people to explore their identities—whether by creating and sharing art, practicing religion, or engaging in politics. Blocking our youth from these diverse spaces robs them of opportunities to develop as individuals and participate in public life, and to find safety in supportive online communities that they can’t always access in the physical world.

Third, it is impossible to define what’s “appropriate” for everyone under 18.

Each young person is different, shaped by their family, cultural background, and maturity level. It makes little sense to treat all people under 18 the same—and what’s “appropriate” for a 6-year-old is not the same for a 17-year-old. Yet age verification mandates commonly treat all young people the same, erasing that critical nuance.

In the end, it’s families—not lawmakers or tech companies—who are best positioned to meaningfully guide their young people’s online lives.

Open, honest conversations with young people about privacy, safety, and digital literacy are far more effective safety measures than blanket age-gating restrictions that hand those important decisions over to the government. And for those parents who do want some digital assistance guiding their children’s internet use, there are already plenty of existing parental controls they can use to customize nearly every level of the user experience—without forcing the entire internet to show ID at the door.

Faverio, Michelle, and Olivia Sidoti. "Teens, Social Media and AI Chatbots 2025." Pew Research Center, 9 Dec. 2025, www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/12/09/teens-social-media-and-ai-chatbots-2025/.

Office of the U.S. Surgeon General. Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2023, www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/sg-youth-mental-health-social-media-advisory.pdf.

A Surgeon General’s Advisory is a public statement that calls the American people’s attention to an urgent public health issue and provides recommendations for how it should be addressed. Advisories are reserved for significant public health challenges that require the nation’s immediate awareness and action. This Advisory calls attention to the growing concerns about the effects of social media on youth mental health. It explores and describes the current evidence on the positive and negative impacts of social media on children and adolescents, some of the primary areas for mental health and well-being concerns, and opportunities for additional research to help understand the full scope and scale of social media’s impact. This document is not an exhaustive review of the literature. Rather, it was developed through a substantial review of the available evidence, primarily found via electronic searches of research articles published in English and resources suggested by a wide range of subject matter experts, with priority given to, but not limited to, meta-analyses and systematic literature reviews. It also offers actionable recommendations for the institutions that can shape online environments—policymakers and technology companies—as well as for what parents and caregivers, young people, and researchers can do.

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Our children and adolescents don’t have the luxury of waiting years until we know the full extent of social media’s impact. Their childhoods and development are happening now. While social media use can have positive impacts for some children, the evidence noted throughout this Surgeon General’s Advisory necessitates significant concern with the way it is currently designed, deployed, and utilized. Child and adolescent use of platforms designed for adults places them at high risk of “unsupervised, developmentally inappropriate, and potentially harmful” use according to the National Scientific Council on Adolescence. At a moment when we are experiencing a national youth mental health crisis, now is the time to act swiftly and decisively to protect children and adolescents from risk of harm.

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The U.S. has a strong history of taking action in such circumstances. In the case of toys, transportation, and medications—among other sectors that have

widespread adoption and impact on children—the U.S. has often adopted a safety-first approach to mitigate the risk of harm to consumers. According to this principle, a basic threshold for safety must be met, and until safety is demonstrated with rigorous evidence and independent evaluation, protections are put in place to minimize the risk of harm from products, services, or goods. For example, the Consumer Product Safety Commission requires toy manufacturers to undergo third-party testing and be certified through a Children’s Product Certificate as compliant with the federal toy safety standard for toys intended for use by children. To reduce the risk of injury from motor vehicle accidents, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requires manufacturers to fit new motor vehicles with standard airbags and seat belts, among other safety features, and conduct crash tests to be compliant with the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. Medications must demonstrate safety to the Food and Drug Administration before being made available and marketed for use. Given the mounting evidence for the risk of harm to some children and adolescents from social media use, a safety-first approach should be applied in the context of social media products.