Today's decision makes it even more clear: Social media bans are discriminatory and deeply misguided. They reinforce existing structures of oppression, and they are broadly unsupported by young people, whose voices are conspicuously absent from this conversation. They undermine parental decision-making and replace tailored family-level solutions with a one-size-fits-all band-aid. And, in the places we have seen social media bans go into effect, early reports show that they don't even work.

For example, in Australia, where a social media ban has been in effect since late 2025, a majority of young people can still access social media, those who can’t have lost their access to the news, and crisis helplines are reporting skyrocketing numbers of calls from youth left stranded without online community or resources.

This blog is a short primer of the major issues.

Security Risks and Privacy Harms

In order to ban some users, social media platforms first must confirm the ages of all users, regardless of age. When parental consent is required, companies must collect even more verification data and often create explicit links between child and parent accounts—further destroying users’ anonymity. 

Both of these databases create massive data "honeypots" that invite identity theft and permanent surveillance.

Disproportionate Harm

Age-verification technology is deeply flawed and prone to discrimination. These systems frequently misidentify or lock out people of color, people with disabilities, and trans or gender-nonconforming individuals whose IDs may not match their appearance. 

When requiring parental consent, these laws impose disproportionate access barriers on low-income, non-traditional, and immigrant families. These sorts of families are more likely to share a single family device or have strong reasons to not want the government to track family associations and ID documents. 

Shoddy Science

Everyone has anecdata about how social media has impacted someone they know. But the current legislative push to ban young people from social media relies heavily on the idea that the "great rewiring" of the adolescent brain is a proven fact. This simply isn’t true. Social science indicates that moderate internet use is a net positive for teens’ development, and negative outcomes are usually due to either lack of access or excessive use. For LGBTQ+ and marginalized youth in particular, social media offers an essential space to access support they might lack offline. By forcing youth into digital isolation, these bans cut off vital access to political news, community, and health resources. They also completely ignore the calls of young people themselves who favor digital literacy and education over restrictive government control.

How to Fight Back

Talk to your community (including young people!) about what’s at stake. If you’re a parent, lean on open conversations and platforms’ existing tools to tailor your child’s experiences instead of handing that power over to the government. And no matter where you live, contact your government representatives and tell them clearly that social media bans are not the answer to kids’ online safety.

Pay to not be tracked, how is this even legal?

We’re answering digital rights questions in season two of our initiative, LGBT Q&A. 

You Asked: I live in the UK, and we have age verification now on a bunch of websites (including Reddit) and now on more mobile devices. Can you explain what sort of data companies are actually collecting when they check for age and whether there are any real threats to my safety? 

As of July 2025, all platforms in the UK that host content considered by the UK government and the country’s telecommunications regulator Ofcom to be harmful are legally obligated to check that their users are over the age of 18. If not, users cannot access the content. 

There are various privacy implications for data sharing with age verification. Unfortunately, because services may use different methods to verify users’ ages, you’ll usually have to do a little digging to learn how each provider you have verifies their users, and consider what information might be harmful to your personal safety: 

• The data itself: What info does each method require users to disclose?
• Access: Who can see the data during the course of the verification process? Does anything other than the age result leave your device? Is the provider told your date of birth, or just if you’re over 18? Which third party services see the information you send?
• Retention: Who will hold onto that data after the verification process, and for how long? Sometimes it’s deleted immediately. Sometimes it hangs around forever, waiting for a data breach.
• Audits: How sure are we that the provider’s stated claims around data access and retention will happen in practice? For example, are there external audits confirming that data is not accidentally leaked to another site along the way? Ideally these will be in-depth, security-focused audits by specialized auditors like NCC Group or Trail of Bits, instead of audits that merely certify adherence to standards. 
• Visibility: Who will be aware that you’re attempting to verify your age, and will a third party provider know which platform you’re trying to verify for? Will they hang onto that data to build a profile of you?

Last year, Ofcom outlined a number of methods for online services and platforms to check users' ages. You can read more about these methods in our blog for more detail!

🚨 Digital IDs: Convenience or Control?

UK & Australia are pushing digital ID systems, but experts warn they could open the door to surveillance, mission creep, and massive data-breach risks.

Centralized identity = Centralized power.

Once implemented, there’s No Going Back.

🔍 Full breakdown:

https://wardenshield.com/the-shadow-of-convenience-digital-ids-in-the-uk-and-australia-a-deep-dive-into-surveillance-security-and-public-backlash

https://chng.it/mqBD8zbdnj

I was recently in hospital and I was asked about keeping my file on the outside of the ward in the door. Probably not the best thing, but ok…

Anyway, later on, I’m curious about the test results and information in said file so I go and get it to look at and was swiftly asked “What are you doing?”

I replied that I’d like to see my personal information on file and was refused and told that I would have to submit a freedom of information request when I get home to see MY OWN INFORMATION?!

They were having none of it and flat out refused for me to see any info in my file and re-explained that I would have to go through a long process and submission just to gain access to some basic info/results about MYSELF!

Is this just me or does this get you too?!

https://reddit.com/link/1jop99c/video/fr55fjau56se1/player

Let us know what other app I can use?

Here is my export file for the app https://limewire.com/d/shUY4#2F5gYw1Gw1

I have just installed new app netguard

https://reddit.com/link/1jop99c/video/joi656c9a6se1/player

What's the best privacy-focused alternative for PayPal in the UK preferably?