Social media plays an important role in the lives of many teenagers. It allows young people to stay connected with friends, meet others who share their interests or identities, access educational resources, learn about current events, express their opinions, participate in activism, and develop creative or professional skills. For teenagers who are isolated, live in rural areas, are homeschooled, have disabilities, belong to marginalized communities, or live in restrictive or unsupportive households, online spaces can be especially important because they provide access to people, information, and support that may not be available in their immediate offline environment.
At the same time, lawmakers at both the state and federal level are increasingly proposing restrictions on minors’ use of social media. These policies can include minimum-age requirements, parental-consent laws, mandatory age verification, default “teen account” restrictions, limits on private messaging, and expanded parental monitoring. NYRA opposes broad age-based social media restrictions because they can limit young people’s privacy, freedom of expression, access to information, ability to maintain friendships, and opportunities to seek support independently. These laws can also disproportionately harm vulnerable teenagers who rely on online communities to escape isolation or connect with people outside controlling or abusive environments. Instead of restricting an entire age group’s access to modern communication, efforts to improve online safety should focus on specific harms such as exploitation, harassment, data collection, predatory behavior, and abusive platform practices.
In the following webpage, the National Youth Rights Association explains laws on Social Media bans and restrictions for minors, as well as the benefits of social media for teenagers and the harms of restricting it from them.
Table of Contents
- Federal Laws on Social Media Restrictions for Youth
- State Laws on Social Media Restrictions for Minors
- Other Countries With Age-Based Social Media Bans
- Social Media Platforms With Youth Restrictions
- Default “Teen Accounts” For Youth on Social Media Platforms
- Age Verification Data Breaches
- Debunking Myths About Social Media and Teenage Mental Health
- Harms of Social Media Bans and Restrictions for Minors
- Benefits For Marginalized Youth Through Social Media
- Educational Benefits of Social Media for Young People
- Students Benefiting from Social Media Activism
- How Age Verification Can Impact Online Gaming for Minors
- Cases and Stories of the Harms of Restricting Social Media for Young People
The National Youth Rights Association
If you’re interested in Youth Rights, consider volunteering with us. We are always looking for new members and would love to have you on board. If you have a personal story to share, about social media restrictions negatively impacting your life, or about a general youth rights violation, consider sending us an email at nyra@youthrights.org. We’d love to help get your story out to the world.
NYRA’s Research and Advocacy Against Social Media Bans for Minors:
Federal Laws on Social Media Restrictions for Youth
There is currently no federal law that completely bans minors from using social media in the United States. The main federal law regulating children’s online privacy is the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which generally requires covered websites and online services to obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13. COPPA does not itself prohibit children under 13 from using social media, although many platforms use 13 as their minimum account age because serving younger children creates additional legal requirements.
Two major federal proposals would go much further: the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act (KIDS Act). KOSA would impose additional safety and privacy requirements on online platforms used by minors, while the KIDS Act includes broader rules involving privacy, default settings, parental controls, messaging features, and other platform-design practices. The House passed the KIDS Act in June 2026, while the Senate Commerce Committee advanced a separate version of KOSA in August 2026. As of September 2026, neither proposal has completed the full federal legislative process.
One concern with these proposals is that expanding parental control over youth accounts could reduce teenagers’ ability to communicate privately. Parental oversight tools may allow parents to restrict contacts, monitor account activity, or interfere with access to online communities. This can be especially harmful for teenagers living with abusive, controlling, rejecting or oppressive parents, who may rely on private online communication to discuss abuse, mental health, sexuality, gender identity, religion, or other issues they cannot safely discuss at home.
There are also concerns that broad online-safety requirements could result in platforms restricting lawful information for minors. To avoid legal risk, companies may choose to block or limit content involving LGBTQ issues, sexual health, reproductive health, mental health, abuse, politics, or other sensitive subjects, even when the information is educational or supportive. Restrictions on messaging or communication with unfamiliar users could also cut vulnerable teenagers off from communities and support systems that may not exist in their offline lives.
Age verification creates another major concern. If platforms are required to determine which users are minors, they may increasingly rely on government IDs, facial age-estimation systems, app-store age checks, or third-party verification companies. These systems can require users to provide highly sensitive personal information and can create additional risks involving privacy, surveillance, data breaches, and identity theft. Because platforms may need to distinguish adults from minors before applying age-based restrictions, these systems can also affect adult users rather than only children.
In the following video, NYRA President Zane Miller Interviews Otis, a young person telling his story about how having access to social media and online support systems benefited him. Listen as they discuss how KOSA, the KIDS act, and social media restrictions for minors will harm vulnerable teenagers by removing these support systems:
State Laws on Social Media Restrictions for Minors
A growing number of states have passed laws restricting how minors can use social media. These laws vary significantly: some require parental consent before a young person can create an account, some require platforms to verify or estimate users’ ages, and others limit specific features such as algorithmic feeds, notifications, or daily usage time. Several of the most restrictive laws have also been challenged in federal court, meaning that a law may technically remain on the books while some or all of its provisions are currently blocked from enforcement.
States With Stricter Social Media Laws for Youth
Utah: Utah replaced much of its original 2023 Social Media Regulation Act with the Minor Protection in Social Media Act. The newer law requires age assurance, default privacy protections for minors, parental-consent mechanisms, and parental supervisory tools. However, major provisions have been blocked during ongoing federal litigation, so the original claim that Utah currently requires every minor to obtain parental permission before using social media is too broad.
Arkansas: Arkansas originally enacted the Social Media Safety Act, which required age verification and parental consent for users under 18. A federal court permanently blocked that law in 2025. Arkansas later enacted replacement legislation in 2025, but important provisions of the newer law were also preliminarily blocked in April 2026.
Texas: The SCOPE Act (H.B. 18) imposes requirements on digital services used by minors, including restrictions involving data collection, harmful content, and parental controls. However, major portions of the law have been blocked in federal court. In July 2026, the Fifth Circuit upheld an injunction against challenged provisions, so the law should not be described as if all of its youth restrictions are currently enforceable.
Florida: Florida’s H.B. 3 created some of the country’s broadest social-media age restrictions, including provisions targeting accounts held by younger minors and requiring parental consent for certain teenagers. Portions of the law have faced continuing constitutional challenges and injunctions, so its restrictions should be described as subject to ongoing litigation rather than as a fully settled statewide ban.
Georgia: Georgia’s Protecting Georgia’s Children on Social Media Act took effect in 2025. It requires social-media platforms to make commercially reasonable efforts to determine users’ ages and generally prohibits users under 16 from holding covered accounts without parental or guardian permission. The law also requires schools to adopt social-media and internet-use policies and includes additional online-safety provisions.
Tennessee: Tennessee’s Protecting Children from Social Media Act requires covered social-media companies to verify the ages of prospective account holders and obtain parental consent before allowing minors under 18 to create accounts. Parents must also be offered supervision tools, including controls over privacy settings and usage time. A federal challenge has continued through the courts, but in August 2026 the Sixth Circuit upheld the denial of a preliminary injunction that had sought to stop enforcement.
Virginia: Virginia now has one of the more unusual social-media restrictions. Virginia Code § 59.1-577.1 generally limits users under 16 to one hour per day per social-media service, unless a parent gives verifiable consent to increase or decrease the limit. The law also requires commercially reasonable methods of identifying minor users. However, a federal court preliminarily blocked the law in February 2026, and the state has appealed.
Nebraska: Nebraska enacted the Parental Rights in Social Media Act through L.B. 383, which became operative July 1, 2026. Covered platforms must obtain verified parental consent before allowing minors to become account holders. Parents must also be given extensive supervisory tools, including the ability to view posts and messages, control account settings, and monitor or limit the amount of time the minor spends on the platform.
Mississippi: Mississippi’s Walker Montgomery Protecting Children Online Act (H.B. 1126) requires covered digital services to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent before allowing known minors to maintain accounts, while also restricting certain data collection and targeted advertising. The law has been the subject of major federal litigation, and portions have been blocked, so its current enforceability is narrower than the statutory text alone suggests.
Louisiana: Louisiana expanded its youth internet restrictions through H.B. 570 / Act 481, which took effect July 1, 2026. Rather than regulating only individual social-media companies, the law creates broader requirements involving app stores and developers, including age information and parental-consent mechanisms for minors using covered applications.
Ohio: Ohio’s Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act generally requires covered platforms to obtain parental consent before allowing children under 16 to enter into agreements to use their services. A federal district court permanently blocked the law in 2025, but the Sixth Circuit reversed that decision in June 2026. The appeals court later stayed its mandate while further review was sought, so the law’s enforcement status remains tied up in continuing litigation.
California: California has moved away from a straightforward parental-consent model and instead regulates platform design and youth data practices. The state’s Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act (S.B. 976) limits certain algorithmic feeds and notifications for minors and requires age-assurance-related measures. California has also enacted additional youth-design and age-assurance laws, although several provisions have faced First Amendment challenges in federal court.
New York: New York’s SAFE for Kids Act does not ban minors from social media. Instead, beginning January 25, 2027, covered platforms will be prohibited from providing algorithmically personalized “addictive feeds” or sending related notifications between midnight and 6 a.m. to users under 18 unless the minor requests the feature and parental consent is obtained. The final rules also establish age-assurance standards while requiring platforms to offer at least one method that does not involve government identification.
Minnesota: Minnesota considered several significant proposals during the 2025–2026 session. One of the broadest, H.F. 4138, proposed age estimation, parental consent for accounts held by children 15 and younger, restrictions on addictive interface features, and limitations on targeted advertising. Minnesota has also enacted narrower transparency requirements for social-media platforms, but the more expansive account restrictions should be described as proposed legislation rather than as an existing blanket parental-consent law.
These laws show how quickly state regulation of minors’ online activity is changing. Some states are attempting to prohibit or condition youth accounts on parental consent, while others are targeting specific features such as personalized feeds, notifications, advertising, or daily usage. At the same time, courts have repeatedly questioned whether broad age-verification and parental-consent laws violate the First Amendment, meaning that the legal status of many state social-media restrictions continues to change.
Other Countries With Age-Based Social Media Bans
Apart from the United States, a few other countries have placed laws limiting the use of social media for youth. This includes:
The United Kingdom’s Social Restrictions for Minors
One of the most important laws about social media restrictions in the UK is the Online Safety Act, which was passed in the United Kingdom in the year of 2023. This law was created to enhance protections for children and teenagers who use social media and various online platforms. For this policy, technology companies are required to closely monitor harmful content posted online and to improve safety systems for younger users.
Under this law, social media companies and online services must place stronger systems to prevent minors from seeing harmful or age-inappropriate content. Platforms are required to create better age verification systems that go further than just entering their birthdate. This is because self-reported birthdates can easily be falsified by users who want to bypass the age restrictions. Companies may be required to use more secure verification systems. This includes systems such as identity verification, facial age-estimation technology, or other digital methods that help estimate if a user is above or below a certain age. These requirements are meant to reduce the chances of children viewing harmful content online.
However, according to the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), many users in the United Kingdom have already found ways to bypass this law using virtual private networks (VPNs) to hide their location from verification systems. One of the VPN apps called Proton VPN reported sign-ups increased more than 1,400 percent just minutes after the law was placed. The law is enforced by Ofcom, the communications regulator in the United Kingdom. This organization has the ability to monitor companies closer than before to ensure that they follow the rules. Companies that ignore the rule are faced with extremely large financial penalties up to £18 million or 10% of their global annual revenue.
In June 2026, the government announced a much broader policy: social-media companies will be prohibited from offering their services to children under 16. The government plans to use a model similar to Australia’s ban, potentially covering platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, X, and YouTube, while exempting services primarily used for private messaging or education. The first regulations are expected before the end of 2026, with implementation planned for spring 2027.
The restrictions will extend beyond simply preventing under-16s from opening social-media accounts. The government also plans to prevent under-16s from using features such as livestreaming and communication with strangers on other online services, including gaming platforms. Teenagers ages 16 and 17 will still be permitted to use social media, but additional protections will be enabled by default. These include a midnight-to-6 a.m. overnight restriction, muted nighttime notifications, and autoplay and personalized feeds being switched off automatically. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds will generally be able to change those default settings themselves.
Enforcing the under-16 ban will require platforms to determine whether users are old enough to access their services. The government says Ofcom will establish acceptable forms of age assurance and has identified methods such as existing verified account information and facial age-estimation technology. Some adults may also have to complete an age check if a service cannot otherwise establish that they are above the required age. This creates privacy concerns because enforcing age-based internet restrictions can require platforms to collect or process additional information about users who would previously have been able to access services without proving their age.
The restrictions can also reduce teenagers’ ability to independently communicate with people outside their immediate families and communities. Preventing under-16s from communicating with unfamiliar users or participating in social-media communities may particularly affect LGBTQ+ youth, isolated teenagers, young people living in abusive or controlling households, and others who use online communities to find people with similar identities or experiences. The same restrictions can also limit access to educational information, political discussion, activism, creative communities, and viewpoints that young people may not encounter through their parents, schools, or local communities.
There are broader concerns about the amount of government and platform control required to enforce these rules. Age assurance means that online services must distinguish minors from adults, while restrictions on particular forms of communication require platforms to increasingly decide which users may access specific features. Critics argue that systems originally introduced to protect children can create infrastructure for broader identity verification, surveillance, and restrictions on anonymous internet use. Concerns have also been raised about placing increasingly large parts of online expression under government-backed platform regulation, particularly in a country where people can already face legal consequences for certain unlawful communications posted online.
The UK government argues that these measures are necessary to reduce children’s exposure to harmful content and platform features, and its 2026 consultation found strong support for an under-16 restriction among participating parents. However, young people’s responses were considerably more mixed: the government’s own consultation reported that only 19% of children supported a minimum age of 16 across all social-media platforms, although larger shares supported restricting particular features. These differences are part of the continuing debate over whether online harms should be addressed through targeted protections or through broad age-based restrictions on access.
Australia’s Social Media Ban for Under 16 Years of Age
Australia has been known to have one of the strictest policies for youth access to social media platforms in the world. In 2024, the Australian government placed a ban for children under 16 years of age from creating accounts on social media platforms.
Under this law, companies in charge of platforms including Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat are required to prevent users under 16 years of age from accessing their platforms. Technology companies are responsible for enforcing these age limits through verification processes and account monitoring.
If companies do not properly enforce these restrictions, they will be faced with large financial penalties and other legal consequences. The law places the responsibility on technology companies and not the minor themselves or their families.
This policy is incredibly unreasonable, oppressive and a violation of free speech. Banning all youth from social media prevents young people from communicating with peers and engaging in discussions that take place through modern digital platforms. Today, social media has become the most common form of communication. Due to this fact, educating youth on responsible usage and placing minor protections would be more effective compared to banning youth completely.
If you want to learn more about the harms of Australia’s Age-Based Social Media ban, watch the following video where NYRA President Zane Miller speaks with Electronic Frontiers Australia, a Digital Freedom Organization, about the Social Media ban.
Social Media Platforms With Youth Restrictions
Today, a majority of the most popular social media platforms have already placed stricter age verification systems in order to reduce youth usage. This includes:
Instagram: Requires users to be at least 13 years of age and may use AI-based age estimation tools. When necessary, users must upload an official ID or record a facial recognition video. These videos are analyzed by Yoti, a tool that estimates a user’s age based on facial features.
TikTok: Uses AI tool Yoti to analyze a user’s behavior, profile details, and video content to estimate if a user is above 13 years of age. For flagged accounts, users have the ability to upload an official ID, submit a facial recognition video, or submit an appeal to stop their account from receiving a ban.
Snapchat: Requires users to be at least 13 years of age and uses systems to analyze account activity, behavior, and user reports to estimate if someone is underage. Flagged accounts may face removal or restrictions on certain types of content. Depending on the location of the user, certain features may be blocked.
YouTube: Requires users to be at least 13 years of age to create an account and may require the use of age verification tools for age-restricted content. This may include uploading an official ID or submitting a facial recognition video to estimate if a user is over 18 years of age. If a system identifies teen users, restrictions are automatically placed to block age-inappropriate content. The platform also offers supervised accounts on YouTube Kids for pre-teens and teens.
Discord: Requires users to be at least 13 years of age and may require age verification to access certain servers or features labeled as 18 years of age or older. This may include uploading a form of identification (such as ID) or submitting a facial recognition video to estimate if a user is over 18 years of age. The platform also uses moderation systems to identify underage users and remove accounts that violate age requirements.
Facebook: Requires users to be at least 13 years of age and may use AI-based age estimation tools. When necessary, users must upload an official ID or record a facial recognition video. These videos are analyzed by Yoti, a tool that estimates a user’s age based on facial features. These tools are often only used in certain regions, or if a user tries to change their age from under 18 years of age to over 18.
X: Limits access to certain age-restricted content. In some cases, users have the opportunity to verify their identity by uploading an official ID and submitting a selfie to access blocked features. Uploaded personal information and data are verified by the tools Persona and Stripe. X Premium subscribers also have the option to confirm their identity to unlock additional benefits associated with other features provided by X.
These restrictions are oftentimes placed to protect youth from certain content found online; however, this can instead put major risks on the privacy and personal information of minors. Not only is it extremely common for facial recognition and ID verification systems to be wrong, they could also lead to even greater dangers such as the exposure of personal data and information. Even if this exposure happens by accident, it can have serious long-term effects, especially on minors.
Default “Teen Accounts” For Youth on Social Media Platforms
Some social media platforms use “teen accounts” as a way to add safety features without completely blocking minors from usage of their platforms. These accounts are placed automatically to users who create accounts set to birthdates under 18 years of age. These accounts come with stronger restrictions on content, privacy settings, time management, and in some cases require parental controls.
Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger heavily encourage the use of teen accounts, which place unreasonable restrictions on the social media accounts that minors are allowed to possess. These accounts oftentimes give access control and monitoring power to parents, which can become a major issue for young people, when their parents are heavily oppressive.
Platforms such as Youtube and Discord use default teen accounts. This means that when a user creates an account, they are automatically set to teen settings. If a user would like to remove these restrictions, the only way would be to go through the age verification methods such as uploading an official ID or submitting a facial recognition video. However, as seen in past breaches, sharing this kind of data to these systems can be extremely dangerous for minors.
Age Verification Data Breaches
There are a variety of unfortunate incidents where major leaks of personal information took place due to these age verification tools.
Discord’s Data Breach Incident: In the year of 2025, Discord, an online communication platform, announced a data breach stating that over 70,000 government-issued IDs and other personal information was leaked in a breach of a third-party vendor handling age verification data. This included names, Discord username, contact details, billing information, IP addresses, corporate data, and government-issued ID images.
Tea App’s Data Breach Incident: In the year of 2025, the Tea app, a dating app that allows women to do background checks on men, announced a data breach where over 72,000 images were stolen and made public online. Some of these images included leaks of personal information such as government-issued IDs.
AU10TIX Data Exposure: In the year of 2024, AU10TIX, an app that provides identity and age verification tools for a variety of apps, had a security issue where sensitive personal information was exposed. Although there was no direct evidence of data exposure after the app addressed the issue, security issues such as these are incredibly dangerous, even if no proof of stolen information was found afterwards.
Persona Exposure Incident: In 2026, security researchers discovered that Persona had left frontend source maps publicly accessible on a non-production subdomain. The exposed files gave outsiders a clearer view of Persona’s application code, internal structure, routes, and implementation details than would normally be intended, potentially making it easier to identify weaknesses or map out future attacks. The incident highlighted weaknesses in how Persona secured and configured its testing environments and showed how an age-verification company handling highly sensitive identity data can still leave parts of its infrastructure unnecessarily exposed.
These events show that although these systems were created to improve the safety of minors, they instead cause even more risks for users. With these verification processes enforced, users are required to just trust that their data will be protected by the platform. If sensitive personal information is exposed, it can lead to identity theft, privacy violations, and a variety of other long-term issues.
Debunking Myths About Social Media and Teenage Mental Health
One of the most common justifications for restricting youth access to social media is the claim that frequent social media use is a major cause of depression and other mental health problems among teenagers. Research by Mike Males challenges this common claim that frequent social media use is a major cause of teenage depression and other mental health problems.
In the following video, NYRA members Zane Miller and Ian Golec Spoke with Mike Males on issues such as teen social media use, and teen takeovers. Mike Males debunked many myths about social media use and teenagers:
The following analysis is a summary of his research on the issue. In his analysis of the 2025 Philadelphia Youth Risk Behavior Survey, Males found that the strongest factors associated with frequently poor mental health were overwhelmingly problems in teenagers’ offline lives: 50% involved parents or family circumstances, including abuse, household violence, severe adult mental health problems, and incarceration, while another 23% involved personal experiences such as rape, concussion, and lack of sleep. Only 7% involved an online factor, specifically cyberbullying. His earlier analysis of the CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey similarly found that teenagers experiencing frequent or severe family adversity were about seven times more likely to report frequently poor mental health. Males argues that this creates a major correlation-versus-causation problem: teenagers dealing with abuse, isolation, or other serious difficulties may both experience worse mental health and spend more time online, meaning that studies which fail to account for these factors can make social media appear more harmful than it actually is.
Males’ research also complicates claims that social media use is driving teenage suicide. In a follow-up analysis of the Philadelphia survey, he found that teenagers who rarely used social media were 2.3 times more likely to report attempting suicide than those who used it daily to hourly, even though frequent users reported somewhat worse overall mental health. He argues that distressed teenagers may be using social media to find friends, emotional support, and connection rather than being harmed by the platforms themselves. Males has also challenged the idea of a worldwide social-media-driven suicide crisis. In “There’s No Global Increase in Teenage Suicide” and a later 41-country analysis, he found that teenage suicide rates declined in most countries during the same period that smartphones and social media became widespread. His findings do not prove that social media is harmless, but they do undermine the idea that it is a primary or universal cause of teenage mental health problems and suggest that family adversity, victimization, school conditions, and other offline factors deserve far more attention.
Harms of Social Media Bans and Restrictions for Minors
Violations of Youth Privacy – Many proposed social media restrictions require parental monitoring software, mandatory account oversight, or laws forcing platforms to give parents access to teenagers’ private messages. These policies destroy minors’ ability to communicate privately with friends and peers. Teenagers need spaces where they can talk openly, vent emotions, explore ideas, and build relationships without constant surveillance. Treating all youth communication as something that must be monitored undermines trust, independence, and healthy emotional development.
Suppression of Free Speech and Expression – Social media functions as one of the largest platforms for free discussion and self-expression in modern society. Restricting minors from participating in online spaces limits their ability to share opinions, discuss ideas, and engage in public conversations. Young people have the same need for self-expression and intellectual exploration as adults, and preventing them from participating in online discourse suppresses their voices. Along with this, since youth lack the ability to vote, and therefore have no say in their own government, social media is the one place where they can actually advocate and get their voices heard by the people in power.
Harm to Mental Development and Autonomy – Teenagers need opportunities to develop independence, responsibility, and decision-making skills. Constantly restricting or controlling their online activity prevents them from learning how to manage freedom responsibly. Overly restrictive laws push the idea that minors are incapable of handling communication, expression, or personal responsibility, which harms their development of self agency and discipline.
Destruction of Social Connections – Social media is one of the primary ways modern teenagers communicate with friends. Restricting access isolates young people from their social circles and makes it harder to maintain close relationships. This is especially harmful for long-distance friendships, online communities, and teens who struggle socially in their local environments. Many friendships today depend heavily on online communication, and banning social media cuts youth off from those relationships.
Increased Vulnerability for Youth in Oppressive Homes – Many teenagers grow up in controlling, abusive, or overly restrictive households where parents heavily limit their ability to socialize, express themselves, or access information. Social media can provide an escape from these environments by allowing youth to connect with supportive communities and trusted friends outside the home. Restricting access further isolates vulnerable minors and strengthens the control of oppressive parents.
Isolation of Rural Youth – Teenagers living in small towns or isolated communities often have limited opportunities to meet peers who share their interests, identities, or hobbies. Social media allows them to connect with thousands of people across the country and the world who share similar passions. Restricting social media access traps many youth in socially limited environments where they may feel completely alone.
Harm to Disabled and Chronically Ill Youth – Some minors cannot easily socialize in person due to disability, chronic illness, mobility issues, or family caregiving responsibilities. Social media gives these youth an accessible way to build friendships and participate in communities despite physical limitations. Removing access disproportionately harms vulnerable youth who already face barriers to social interaction in the physical world.
Harm to LGBTQ Youth – Social media often serves as a lifeline for LGBTQ teenagers, especially those living in unsupportive homes or communities. Online spaces allow queer youth to find acceptance, community, identity affirmation, and emotional support they may not have access to offline. Restricting social media access disproportionately harms vulnerable LGBTQ minors who rely on online communities for connection and safety.
Destruction of Mental Health Support Networks – Many struggling teenagers turn to online communities for emotional support, peer connection, and mental health encouragement. Youth dealing with abuse, foster care instability, depression, anxiety, or isolation often find safe spaces online where they feel understood and supported. Restricting social media removes access to communities that may genuinely help vulnerable youth survive difficult circumstances. This is especially important to consider, due to the fact that in most states, minors are not allowed to independently access therapy without a parents’ consent. So online spaces may be the easiest way for them to receive mental health support.
Further Isolation of Foster Youth and Troubled Teens – Youth in foster care systems, unstable homes, or abusive family situations often experience extreme social instability and loneliness. Online communities may be the only consistent support systems they have. Taking away access to those spaces further isolates already vulnerable minors who may have very few trusted people in their offline lives.
Loss of Creative Opportunities – Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and other content-sharing apps allow teenagers to express creativity through video production, art, music, storytelling, and other forms of media. Creating content encourages youth to develop valuable skills such as editing, public speaking, animation, photography, and digital production. Social media restrictions remove one of the largest creative outlets available to modern teenagers.
Destruction of Youth Career Opportunities – Social media is one of the few spaces where minors can independently build successful careers, audiences, or businesses before adulthood. Many teenagers have used social media platforms to earn money through content creation, sponsorships, streaming, or entrepreneurship. Restricting access prevents youth from pursuing opportunities that could provide financial independence, career experience, and life-changing success at an early age.
Punishing Youth Instead of Addressing Exploitation – Exploitation of child influencers should be addressed through labor protections and financial safeguards, not through blanket bans on social media access. Laws protecting minors’ earnings and rights online already exist in some states and show that protecting children does not require eliminating their freedoms. Banning social media entirely punishes all minors instead of targeting abusive or exploitative situations directly.
Restrictions on Youth Organization and Activism – Many youth-led organizations, clubs, advocacy groups, and activist movements rely heavily on social media to communicate and organize. Restricting minors’ access prevents them from participating in causes, communities, and movements they care about. Social media allows youth across different states and countries to collaborate around shared goals and ideas in ways that would otherwise be impossible.
Limiting Access to Information and Education – Social media exposes teenagers to diverse perspectives, cultures, experiences, and educational content from around the world. It allows youth to learn about topics their schools, communities, or parents may never expose them to. Restricting access limits intellectual growth and makes it easier for sheltered environments to completely control what information young people are allowed to see.
Blocking Access to Health and Sex Education Information – Some teenagers live in environments where parents refuse to teach or allow access to basic sex education, mental health information, or other important health topics. Social media and online communities often provide access to educational resources that youth may not receive elsewhere. Restricting online access can leave minors uninformed about subjects directly affecting their health and safety.
Collective Punishment Based on Age – Social media restrictions punish all minors regardless of maturity, responsibility, or individual behavior. Instead of targeting harmful actions directly, lawmakers impose sweeping restrictions against an entire age group based solely on stereotypes about youth vulnerability or irresponsibility. This treats minors as incapable of making decisions for themselves purely because of age.
Expansion of Surveillance and Control – Many proposed regulations push for parental monitoring systems, age verification requirements, identity checks, and expanded oversight of youth communication. These systems normalize surveillance and reduce minors’ ability to privately explore ideas, relationships, and identities. Constant monitoring creates environments focused on control rather than trust or healthy development.
Reinforcement of Sheltering and Indoctrination – Social media gives youth exposure to perspectives and experiences outside of their immediate family environment. Restricting access makes it easier for controlling households to isolate children from outside viewpoints and enforce ideological conformity. Youth who are heavily sheltered by parents lose one of the few tools available for independently exploring the wider world.
The Harms of Social Media Bans and Restrictions for Minors are summarized from this article. Read the full article for in depth explanations of each of these.
Benefits For Marginalized Youth Through Social Media
Social meda platforms such as these are a necessity in the modern world for a variety of reasons, which makes it all the more unreasonable for companies to restrict young people from accessing them. For starters, social media allows teens to communicate with others and participate in communities that share their interests, which can be especially helpful for marginalized individuals. As stated by the National Library of Medicine, social media offers marginalized adolescents an easier way to connect with others who share similar identities and interests. This helps lower rates of mental health issues among youth who may feel out of place offline.
For example, according to a study by The Trevor Project, a majority of LGBTQ+ youth use online platforms as a way to connect with others because it is difficult to do so in their daily lives. After taking a survey for research, LGBTQ+ youth reported feeling very safe and supported on the following platforms: TikTok (59%), Discord (45%), YouTube (41%), and Instagram (41%). It has been stated that platforms with lower rates could be due to fewer LGBTQ+ youth representations on each platform.
Not only is social media a great way for marginalized youth to find supportive connections, it can also serve as a tool for youth to deal with stress and negative emotions. Research by the National Center for Health Research found that social media helps teens to be accepted (58%), supported (67%), creative (71%), and connected with friends (80%). In addition, 70% of adolescent girls of color find race-affirming content on social media platforms.
This goes to show that these platforms provide a much easier way for individuals to find accepting communities, especially for those who may feel unsupported in usual everyday lives.
Stories of Marginalized Youth Benefitting from Social Media
#BlackLivesMatter: In the year of 2020, many people shared videos and stories under the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter after George Floyd, a black American father, was killed by a cop in Minneapolis due to racial injustice. The story spread quickly worldwide helping share the importance of racial equality.
Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Campaigns: In the year of 2020, after increased racism and violent acts aimed at Asians took place, many individuals shared their stories under the hashtag #StopAsianHate. The posts spread across social media, helping raise awareness about discrimination and connected youth to supportive communities.
#TransRightsAreHumanRights: In the year of 2021, many transgender and non-binary individuals used the hashtag #TransRightsAreHumanRights to share their stories of discrimination and pride. These posts helped raise awareness about the challenges faced by trans individuals, and helped them connect with supportive allies. This movement helped the world better understand gender identity while also sharing the importance of acceptance.
#DisabilityTooWhite: In the year of 2020, disabled youth of color shared their experiences online about how racial issues connected with disability spaces. The hashtag #DisabilityTooWhite spread across social media allowing disabled individuals of color to build a community with others who share similar experiences.
Educational Benefits of Social Media for Young People
Social media can also be an extremely helpful tool for learning and educational purposes. Platforms including YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok allow teens to find resources quicker to help them succeed academically and personally.
For example, many teenagers use social media to learn about current events and discuss important issues with others. A survey by Common Sense Media found that 54% of teenagers learn about news and current events through social media, and 65% stated that it helps them better understand what is going on. This proves that the platforms can provide access to information that may not always be available through other sources.
Social media also helps young people find educational resources to further understand school subjects. Teens who are especially interested in attending university or following certain career paths can find extracurricular opportunities, online workshops, and projects related to their interests. These platforms give students a chance to gain experiences that can help with college applications or future career paths.
In addition, social media allows teens to access study guides and video explainers for free that can help them with understanding topics that they may find difficult at first. Students who struggle to understand lessons in class can use online resources for some additional help to develop a stronger understanding of the subject. This can make learning easier and faster for youth to gain more confidence in their academics.
Students Benefiting from Social Media Activism
Social media has a variety of benefits for the way young people participate in activism and advocacy today. Platforms including Instagram, X, and TikTok allow youth to raise awareness about issues they care about and communicate with others who share their concerns. According to research by San Francisco Foghorn, 79% of students stated that social media is extremely important for activism in this day and age, and 100% reported participating in some form of digital activism, while only 5% have taken part in in-person activism. This shows that online platforms serve as a great and more effective way for youth to speak out about certain situations that affect their everyday lives.
Stories of Youth Activism Through Social Media
Greta Thunberg: At 15 years of age, Greta started posting about her school strikes for climate change. Her posts eventually spread worldwide and helped begin the “Fridays for Future” movement. This inspired numerous students everywhere to protest and raise awareness about issues they care about.
#MarchForOurLives: After a shooting that occurred in Parkland, Florida, students used social media to organize rallies and promote gun control. A variety of hashtags and posts spread worldwide and encouraged millions of people to join protests across the United States.
ICE Out Student Protests: During the start of 2026, thousands of students located across the United States coordinated “ICE out” walkouts using social media to spread the message and encourage participation. These youth-led protests helped show how much youth truly cares about speaking out for human rights.
How Age Verification Can Impact Online Gaming for Minors
Age verification requirements can affect much more than traditional social media platforms. Many online games now include social features such as voice chat, text chat, friend systems, user-generated content, and multiplayer communities, meaning that age-assurance systems can determine which parts of a game young people are allowed to access. For example, Roblox now requires users to complete an age check to access chat, using either facial age estimation or government-ID verification. Users who do not complete an age check can lose access to communication features, while younger users are placed into age-based account categories that can also restrict which games and experiences they are able to access.
These systems can significantly change how minors participate in online gaming communities. Roblox’s newer age-based accounts restrict certain users under 16 to selected games and place additional limitations on communication, while users who have not completed an age check can have both game access and communication restricted. Although these measures are intended to prevent inappropriate interactions between adults and children, they can also make it harder for young people to communicate with friends, participate in gaming communities, collaborate on user-created projects, or access games that have been placed outside their age category.
Age verification can also create privacy concerns. Systems based on facial age estimation require users to provide images of their face, while ID-based systems can involve highly sensitive government documents. Privacy advocates have warned that age-verification systems can increase the amount of personal information collected from users and create additional risks if that information is mishandled, breached, or used for purposes beyond verifying age. These concerns apply not only to social media but increasingly to multiplayer games and other online services where age determines access to communication or content.
As governments expand age-verification requirements, online gaming could therefore become another major area where youth internet access is restricted based primarily on age rather than individual behavior. Safety measures can help address genuine risks such as grooming, harassment, or inappropriate contact, but broad age-based restrictions can also limit ordinary friendships, creative collaboration, and participation in online communities for young people who use gaming as an important social outlet.
In the following video NYRA President Zane Miller Interviews JDawg, Founder of Gaming Brethren Advocates about age verification and online ID. Listen as they discuss how the internet and online gaming is beneficial for youth for education and social connectivity:
Cases and Stories of the Harms of Restricting Social Media for Young People
Pavlova — online friends became their primary support system while living in a chaotic and emotionally abusive home — When interviewed by NYRA, Pavlova described growing up in a home marked by screaming, parental conflict, emotional instability, and fear, while also experiencing severe bullying at school and later becoming socially isolated through homeschooling. They said they attempted suicide as young as age 10, before they had access to social media, and had few meaningful connections with people their own age. After getting Discord and later using Twitter, Pavlova said they finally found friends who listened to them, comforted them during crises, shared similar experiences, and made them feel less alone. They described those online friendships as giving them “reason to live” and said losing access to those people would place them back in the same isolated position they had experienced as a younger child. Their story demonstrates how social media can function as a crucial outside support system for teenagers who lack safe or supportive relationships at home and have few opportunities to build them offline.
Otis and his transgender friend — online communities gave two socially isolated teenagers the support they struggled to find offline — Otis was interviewed by NYRA, and described being autistic and finding it extremely difficult to make friends at school, leaving him without a strong in-person support network. Through social media, however, he was able to form friendships with people around whom he felt comfortable “unmasking” and being himself. He also described a 15-year-old transgender friend living in a physically abusive and unsupportive household where substance abuse was common. According to Otis, that teenager had eight online friends he considered his “brothers,” who regularly supported him through the problems at home and constituted one of his only reliable sources of emotional support. Their experiences illustrate how online friendships can be especially important for autistic, LGBTQ+, abused, or otherwise socially isolated teenagers, and how restricting access to social media can remove relationships that function as far more than casual online entertainment.
Abyss — a foster-care teenager who said an online mental-health community helped keep her alive — Abyss described finding the Discord mental-health support server Moments when she was 15 and in an extremely dark period of her life. She said she had been ready to end her life, but the community welcomed her, gave her friendships and one-on-one support, and became a place where she could talk openly about what she was experiencing. Abyss, who said she was in the foster-care system and did not have a safe place in her offline life, told NYRA that without the server she did not believe she would still be alive. She also warned that parental access requirements could make vulnerable teenagers less willing to seek support online, particularly when their parents or caregivers are part of the reason they do not feel safe discussing their problems at home.
Laura Pettenuzzo — online friendships helped keep her safe during periods of self-harm and suicidal thinking — Laura Pettenuzzo described being an extremely anxious teenager who struggled with self-harm, feelings of worthlessness, disability, and questions about her sexuality that she did not feel able to discuss openly with people around her. Through fan-fiction websites and social media, she found other young people with similar experiences and developed friendships that became an important source of emotional support. She recalled coming home from school on one occasion intending to self-harm, only to find a message from an online friend who had written and dedicated a story to her; Pettenuzzo said the interaction interrupted what she had been planning and helped her remain safe that night. Looking back during debate over Australia’s under-16 social-media restrictions, she said she did not know what she would have done if she had been prohibited from accessing the online communities that became such an important part of her adolescence.
Abbie Jane — a queer teenager who said her online community helped her survive severe homophobic bullying — Abbie Jane grew up queer in regional Australia and said she experienced approximately two years of relentless homophobic bullying at school, leaving her feeling isolated and misunderstood. Social media gave her access to supportive LGBTQ+ people beyond her local community and eventually allowed her to create the Rainbow Shoelace Project, through which she distributed pride-colored shoelace beads and connected with other queer people. Abbie said spreading positivity and receiving support through social media “basically saved my life,” and later described going online as her safe place during the period when she was being bullied. Australia’s proposed—and subsequently implemented—under-16 restrictions therefore frightened her because the spaces policymakers were considering removing were the same spaces where she had found acceptance that was unavailable in her immediate environment.
Maggie — the rural transgender teenager who found other trans young people online when she was afraid to be herself locally — Maggie, a 15-year-old transgender girl living in a small rural Queensland town, described being terrified to tell people at her former school that she was trans because she feared bullying. After moving to distance education, social media became one of her primary ways of finding people who understood her. Through platforms including Discord and Snapchat, she met other transgender people hundreds or thousands of kilometres away, maintained friendships, and connected with people who shared her interests. She explained that in a remote community she could not simply find hundreds of similar people locally, whereas online she could be herself even when it did not feel safe to do so at home or school. She warned that taking away those platforms could remove an important lifeline for closeted LGBTQ+ teenagers whose parents may not even know about the identities or supportive friendships they maintain online.
Latisha — social media connected the 15-year-old with relatives and culture thousands of kilometres away — Latisha, a 15-year-old Australian teenager from a Cambodian family, described social media as an important connection to relatives living in Cambodia whom she could not regularly see in person. Messenger and Facebook allowed her to remain involved with extended family despite the distance, while photos and other content helped her follow what was happening in Cambodia and strengthen her Cambodian language skills. Faced with Australia’s proposed under-16 restrictions, Latisha said losing social media would distance her from family members and make communication more difficult. Her story demonstrates that restricting social media can affect more than peer entertainment: for young people in immigrant and geographically dispersed families, these platforms may help maintain actual family relationships and cultural connections.
Ezra Sholl — social media replaced part of the social life he lost after cancer left him paralyzed — Ezra Sholl developed Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 12, and a resulting nerve condition left him paralyzed and unable to continue activities such as basketball that had previously been major parts of his life. His parents had originally prohibited social media, but after he became ill they allowed him to use it. Ezra said social media filled the resulting void in his social life by allowing him to remain friends with people he already knew, make new friends, and stay connected with the wider world despite his new physical limitations. At 15, Australia’s under-16 social-media ban threatened that connection, prompting his mother to argue that policies designed around the average teenager could overlook young people with disabilities, rural youth, LGBTQ+ teenagers, and others for whom the offline world is significantly less accessible.
Amanda Lennestaal’s teenagers — disabled young people who lost an accessible social environment after Australia’s ban — After Australia’s under-16 social-media restrictions took effect, Amanda Brummell Lennestaal said the change removed an important space of connection for her teenage children, who have disabilities. Her children could not readily participate in mainstream school-holiday activities or organized sports, while online spaces allowed them to socialize without some of the physical, sensory, and communication barriers they encountered offline. Lennestaal said the ban removed a form of community engagement, expression, and identity exploration that was difficult to replace; she also observed her children gravitating toward alternative platforms that they themselves understood could be less safe because their need for social connection had not disappeared. She described the practical effect on her family as detrimental and said children like hers became less visible and less heard when accessible online communities were removed.
Elliot — a bisexual and transgender young person whose parents blocked the online community they had found while growing up — In a peer-reviewed study of socially isolated sexual- and gender-minority youth, Elliot described growing up with parents who blocked large portions of the internet. Tumblr initially escaped those restrictions, giving Elliot an online space where they could learn about LGBTQ+ identities and become part of a community that was otherwise difficult to access. When their parents eventually discovered Tumblr and blocked it as well, Elliot said they lost a major community. Their account provides a particularly direct example of parental internet restrictions cutting a vulnerable young person off from an identity-based support network rather than simply reducing recreational screen time. The same study found that participants commonly used social-media groups and private messaging to seek emotional support, particularly when similar support was difficult to obtain where they lived.
Cyrus — the young person who used Discord friends for emotional support before having a therapist — Another participant in the same study, identified as Cyrus, described turning to friends on Discord when struggling emotionally before beginning therapy. Cyrus said they would tell online friends what they were feeling and receive reassurance in response. Other young LGBTQ+ participants in the study similarly described using Snapchat groups, Facebook groups, and specialized online communities to find people who understood their identities and could provide immediate support during difficult periods. These accounts illustrate why removing social-media access can have a different effect on a vulnerable teenager than simply removing entertainment: the people accessible through the platform may be functioning as part of the teenager’s informal emotional-support network.
Teenage psychiatric patients who relied on social media to maintain relationships outside inpatient care — A psychological-autopsy study examining adolescents’ social-media experiences found that for some girls who had spent time in inpatient psychiatric settings, social media was considered necessary for maintaining relationships with friends and family outside the facility. These teenagers were surrounded by other severely distressed patients and sometimes witnessed suicidal behavior among peers inside the institution. Researchers reported that communication with friends and family online helped them feel cared for and provided an emotional counterbalance to the distressing environment around them. The accounts show why restrictions on social media can have particularly complicated consequences for young people already experiencing serious mental-health difficulties: online communication may be one of the few ways they can preserve relationships with the ordinary social world outside treatment.
The teenager whose parents repeatedly confiscated her phones but who continued finding ways to reconnect — In the same psychological-autopsy research, parents described how attempts to tightly restrict adolescents’ internet and social-media use sometimes produced intense distress and determined efforts to circumvent the restrictions. One parent recalled repeatedly confiscating a daughter’s phone because of concerns including sleep and her running away from a treatment facility, only to discover that she had obtained a second phone and apparently then a third. Researchers reported that several parents felt active restrictions had done more harm than good because they triggered strong emotional reactions while failing to actually disconnect teenagers from the online relationships they were determined to preserve. The case does not establish that the restriction caused the young person’s later death, but it documents how simply removing devices from already vulnerable adolescents could escalate conflict rather than addressing the reasons they were using online spaces.
Adolescents who said parental responses to self-harm included taking away the very technology and relationships they relied on — A qualitative study of adolescents discussing how parents responded after learning about self-injurious thoughts or behaviors found that some young people experienced increased surveillance and loss of social access at the same time they were already struggling psychologically. Participants described parents taking away phones, restricting friends and significant others, and imposing months of constant monitoring; one teenager recalled a parent taking away their phone and telling them to pray, while another said their parents prevented them from seeing their boyfriend and his family. These responses were not identical to a government social-media ban, but they demonstrate a potential danger of treating digital or social disconnection as a default response to youth distress: removing a phone may simultaneously remove access to the people with whom the teenager feels safest communicating.
Pete De Waard Jr. and the Wave Raiders — Australia’s ban removed a teenager’s ability to manage the social-media presence of his own band — Pete De Waard Jr. had managed the social-media accounts for his teenage alternative-rock band, the Wave Raiders, since he was about 12, with his father’s supervision. After Australia’s under-16 restrictions took effect, 15-year-old Pete could no longer personally perform that role, forcing his father to take over the accounts and notifications. His father explained that social media was not merely recreational for the boys: the band regarded music as a possible career, and demonstrating an audience online was important for obtaining gigs. The restriction therefore removed a young person’s ability to independently promote a creative project and participate in an online community connected to his interests and future ambitions.
Evie Thomas — the 14-year-old cut off from the platform she primarily used to communicate with friends — After Australia’s under-16 ban took effect, 14-year-old Evie Thomas found herself unable to access Snapchat even after attempting to enter a different birth date and complete the platform’s age check. Snapchat had been her main way of communicating with friends. She was able to continue accessing some other platforms, so the restriction did not remove her entire online social life, but her experience shows the immediate practical effect an age-based account restriction can have: a communication channel routinely used among a teenager’s friends can suddenly disappear even when the teenager had been using it principally to remain socially connected.
Thirty LGBTQ+ teenagers who described social media groups as places to find friendship, identity support, sexual-health information, and help during suicidal periods — A qualitative study interviewing 30 LGBTQ+ adolescents ages 14–17 found that participants commonly used social media to build support networks unavailable to them elsewhere. Teenagers described joining groups to find LGBTQ+ peers, developing friendships and romantic relationships, learning about sexuality and sexual health, and both giving and receiving emotional support. For participants dealing with isolation, victimization, or mental-health problems—including suicidal thoughts—Facebook groups could serve as an especially important source of support. Their accounts illustrate why access restrictions can have unequal effects: a teenager with a supportive family and large local friend group may primarily lose entertainment, while an isolated LGBTQ+ teenager may lose one of the only places where they regularly encounter people who understand their identity.
