We are not Banning Kids - We are Protecting them.
By Rachel Mortimer | Posted: Wednesday February 4, 2026
This article from Kirra Pendergast, an online safety expert. She is moving the narrative from the media spin of banning to protection. Although written in response to Australian laws on social media, they apply to school filtering during the day.
We're not banning Kids. We're stopping Big Tech from Targeting them
If you’ve read the headlines lately, you might think governments are trying to ban kids from using social media. That’s the story doing the rounds in Australia, France and other countries, and it’s spreading fast. But that’s not what’s actually happening, and the difference matters. Governments are banning the platforms from accessing children. That’s a huge distinction, and it’s one we urgently need to get right.
Social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat are built to track, collect, and monetise behaviour and our attention. That’s their business model. The more time we spend online, the more data they gather, and the more ads they sell. Kids are seen as “super-users” because they’re online for hours and are easier to influence.
So when a government steps in and says, “You need to verify users’ ages,” or “You can’t keep targeting kids like this,” it’s not about punishing young people. It’s about finally setting limits on how tech companies operate. But here’s the catch: Big Tech doesn’t want that story to spread. It’s not good for their image. So instead, they spin it. They frame it as governments banning children, stifling expression, cutting kids off from their digital lives and too often, the media picks up that version and runs with it.
It’s misleading, and it plays right into the hands of the companies that created the harm in the first place. We need to change the conversation.
This isn’t about taking something away from children. It’s about protecting them from being constantly watched, profiled, and manipulated by platforms that see them as data, not people. No one is saying young people shouldn’t be online. But they deserve digital spaces that are built with their wellbeing in mind not ones that profit from their anxiety, attention, and addiction.
So let’s stop repeating the line that kids are being banned. They’re not. The platforms are finally being told that they don’t get to build their empire on our children’s backs anymore. That is not a ban, it is a big win for child safety.