This is exactly the conversation that happened in Parliament over the Australian social media ban and its absurd.

There is a broad recognition that in a regulatory vacuum corporate social media created toxic and addictive “engagement”-maximising algorithms that harm all facets of society exposed to them.

So a solution is proposed: ban it for children.

When exactly, did it become fine for corporations to actively and deliberately harm people as long as they were old enough? How about preventing the harm?

It would be just as easy for a government to ban opaque and engagement maximising feed algorithms. But they went with the option that allows “tech” giants to keep harming the less marketable 80% of the population.