I grew up with a younger sister who learned to code by building simple games and sharing them with friends online at age 14. She discovered her passion through that community. A blanket ban would have cut that off. The core problem with banning under-16s is that it treats all social media like a single thing. It's not. There's a huge difference between TikTok's algorithm-driven feed and a private Discord server for a robotics club. We don't ban kids from libraries because some books are inappropriate. We teach them how to navigate. A ban also ignores the responsibility question. Parents, schools, and platforms should be building safety tools and digital literacy, not outsourcing the problem to a blunt legal cutoff. Kids will find workarounds anyway, often in less visible, more dangerous spaces. The result is less oversight, not more.

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