Spain & Greece Line Up Behind Australia’s Under-16 Social Media Ban

Governments have intervened before when new technologies outpaced child-safety norms: Britain’s 1833 Factory Act barred children under nine from textile mills, and the 1996 U.S. Telecommunications Act required V-chips to filter TV content. The present push reflects a larger 21st-century reversal from the borderless, anonymous internet ideal of the 1990s toward nation-state enforcement, data localization, and biometric age checks. If a de-facto global digital adulthood of 16 takes hold, it could cement real-ID internet use for the next century, narrowing online anonymity much as the 1934 Communications Act standardized radio licensing for decades. Yet history cautions that sweeping bans can backfire—Prohibition (1919-1933) birthed black markets and constitutional challenges, echoes already heard in Australian lawsuits alleging free-speech violations. Whether 2120 observers view 2026 as a child-protection milestone or an overzealous moral panic will depend on how effectively these laws adapt to evasive technologies and cross-border realities.