Social media is like sex – young people need education, not unrealistic bans

The federal government has committed to a national plan to ban children from social media.

Details are still scarce. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has acknowledged that “no government is going to be able to protect every child from every threat, but we have to do all we can”.

But banning children from social media isn’t going to fix the problem of online harms faced by young people – it’s only going to put the problem on pause. That’s because when children reach an age when they can use social media, they are still going to face many of the same issues.