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Kids are outsmarting social media bans. That’s not a problem we need to solve.

Social media bans are stacking up. In July, France joined Australia in restricting minors from accessing social media—barring children under 15 from major platforms, before the ban was blocked by the country’s top court on human rights grounds. The UK aims to forbid kids under 16 from accessing Facebook, TikTok, and other platforms in early 2027, and the EU has announced its own plan to prohibit social media for kids under 15. But early lessons from Australia, which enacted a ban in 2024, show that these sorts of age restrictions are easily circumvented. A study published earlier this year found that four in five teens under 16 made their way onto barred platforms. Teens have successfully explored many tactics for bypassing bans, from using a sibling’s face for ID to drawing fake facial hair.

社交媒体禁令正在不断增加。今年7月，法国继澳大利亚之后，也开始限制未成年人使用社交媒体——禁止15岁以下儿童使用主要平台，不过该禁令随后被法国最高法院以人权为由驳回。英国计划在2027年初禁止16岁以下儿童使用Facebook、TikTok及其他平台，欧盟也宣布了禁止15岁以下儿童使用社交媒体的计划。然而，2024年实施禁令的澳大利亚所提供的早期经验表明，这类年龄限制很容易被规避。今年早些时候发表的一项研究发现，五分之四的16岁以下青少年成功进入了被禁平台。青少年们已经成功探索出许多绕过禁令的策略，从使用兄弟姐妹的面部信息进行身份验证，到画上假胡子伪装。

Some proponents of bans have called for an increased focus on enforcement that blocks these workarounds. But circumvention is a signal, not a nuisance or something to be simply deterred. The fact that kids are actively looking for ways to outwit the bans highlights their limitations. Social media bans suppress kids’ access to information, including information that’s essential to their development, identity formation, and socialization, especially during adolescence. Worse, further restriction is likely to backfire. Closing loopholes in age gates could harm kids by pushing them toward less-moderated, higher-risk corners of the web. It also degrades privacy and security for everyone by forcing people to submit sensitive personal information to prove their age.

一些禁令的支持者呼吁加强执法，以封堵这些变通方法。但规避行为是一个信号，而不是一种麻烦，也不是仅仅靠威慑就能解决的问题。孩子们积极寻找方法来规避禁令这一事实，凸显了禁令本身的局限性。社交媒体禁令压制了孩子们获取信息的能力，包括那些对他们的成长、身份认同和社会化至关重要的信息，尤其是在青春期。更糟糕的是，进一步的限制可能会适得其反。堵住年龄门槛的漏洞可能会将孩子们推向监管较少、风险更高的网络角落，从而伤害他们。此外，它还迫使人们提交敏感的个人信息来证明年龄，从而降低了所有人的隐私和安全水平。

In our work, we’ve found that parents and kids both want smarter, more nuanced policies that protect children, families, and their rights. That can take the form of mandating stronger limits on data collection by companies, or giving families flexible tools to control content and access on their own terms. Age gates won’t bring about the desired change, nor will they simplify parenting in the digital world. At best, they will only raise thornier questions and postpone the conversation to a child’s 16th birthday. At worst, they’ll leave kids with no guidance as they make their way through the online world.

在我们的工作中，我们发现家长和孩子都希望有更明智、更细致的政策来保护儿童、家庭及其权利。这可以采取强制公司加强数据收集限制的形式，或者为家庭提供灵活的工具，让他们按照自己的意愿控制内容和访问权限。年龄门槛不会带来预期的改变，也不会简化数字时代的育儿工作。往好了说，它们只会引发更棘手的问题，并将对话推迟到孩子16岁生日时；往坏了说，它们会让孩子们在探索网络世界时失去引导。

A less safe internet for kids: When young people circumvent restrictions, they are often doing what we want developing minds to do and what we celebrate in other contexts: lean into curiosity, problem-solve, and exercise independence. It’s important for kids to do this online, an arena where they often develop social skills and refine their identities. Bans sweep these motivations under the rug, taking a paternalistic approach that doesn’t consider young people’s needs or the realities of what they do online. It also ignores what some parents want. When we examined social media safety interventions last year, parents told us that they often join their kids in lies that help them gain access to needed but gated services.

对儿童而言更不安全的互联网：当年轻人规避限制时，他们往往是在做我们希望成长中的大脑去做的事情，也是我们在其他情境下所赞赏的事情：保持好奇心、解决问题并锻炼独立性。孩子们在网上这样做很重要，因为网络是他们培养社交技能和完善自我认同的场所。禁令掩盖了这些动机，采取了一种家长式的做法，既不考虑年轻人的需求，也不考虑他们在网上活动的现实。它还忽视了一些家长的意愿。去年我们在研究社交媒体安全干预措施时，家长们告诉我们，他们经常配合孩子撒谎，以帮助他们获得所需但被限制的服务。

This isn’t a new phenomenon; research all the way back in 2011 showed that parents taught their children how to evade Facebook age restrictions. Some may say these parents are oblivious to the harms posed by the web or just don’t care. But parents are not a monolithic group. Many simply see offering their children responsible access to social media as a way to help them connect with like-minded peers, find informational content, and learn digital safety skills early on. Many parents believe the benefits outweigh the risks. When parents don’t help provide access and kids are not able to get into the platforms they desire, they will likely move toward alternative online spaces, often ones with fewer guardrails.

这并不是什么新鲜事；早在2011年的研究就表明，家长们会教孩子如何规避Facebook的年龄限制。有些人可能会说，这些家长对网络带来的危害一无所知，或者根本不在乎。但家长并非铁板一块。许多家长仅仅是将为孩子提供负责任的社交媒体访问权限，视为帮助他们与志同道合的同龄人建立联系、寻找信息内容并尽早学习数字安全技能的一种方式。许多家长认为其益处大于风险。当家长不提供帮助，而孩子们又无法进入他们想要的平台时，他们很可能会转向其他的在线空间，而这些空间往往缺乏防护措施。

Sometimes kids wind up on fairly innocuous, if unconventional, platforms, communicating with each other in Google Docs or podcast comment sections. Other times they move to more dangerous platforms that can leave them vulnerable to abuse and predation. In the aftermath of the Australian social media ban, preliminary research shows that kids’ screen time has not meaningfully decreased but has sometimes been redirected, with some young users going to spaces that are unmonitored and unknown to parents. Just as cities are sketchiest when they are not bustling, the most risky platforms for young people are those with the fewest eyes on the digital street. Outdated, dying, and under-resourced platforms tend to attract both vulnerable youth and those who prey on them.

有时，孩子们最终会进入一些相当无害但非传统的平台，比如在Google文档或播客评论区进行交流。而另一些时候，他们会转向更危险的平台，这可能使他们容易受到虐待和侵害。在澳大利亚社交媒体禁令实施后，初步研究显示，孩子们的屏幕使用时间并没有明显减少，有时只是转移了方向，一些年轻用户转向了家长无法监控且不了解的空间。正如城市在冷清时最危险一样，对年轻人来说，风险最高的平台往往是那些数字街道上几乎无人关注的平台。过时、垂死且资源匮乏的平台往往既吸引脆弱的青少年，也吸引那些掠夺他们的人。

A less safe internet for all: Age gates come with dangers of their own. Some platforms automatically track users’ online activities to confirm their age. In doing so, they profile users—collecting and analyzing their data to make inferences about them, which can increase the risk that data will be misused or leaked. Companies may also ask for personal documents like driver’s licenses to verify age, which can lead to mishandling of sensitive documents or even identity theft. Data breaches happen: Last year, for example, Discord reported that one of its third-party services, 5CA, which is used to confirm age, had been compromised, exposing at least 70,000 images of users’ government IDs.

对所有人而言更不安全的互联网：年龄门槛本身就带有危险。一些平台会自动跟踪用户的在线活动以确认其年龄。在此过程中，它们会对用户进行画像——收集和分析用户数据以推断其信息，这可能会增加数据被滥用或泄露的风险。公司还可能要求提供驾驶执照等个人证件来验证年龄，这可能导致敏感文件的处理不当，甚至引发身份盗用。数据泄露时有发生：例如，去年Discord报告称，其用于确认年龄的第三方服务之一5CA遭到入侵，泄露了至少7万张用户的政府身份证件照片。

It can take little effort to find ways to use that kind of information for malicious purposes by, say, connecting driver’s licenses to specific accounts and private online activity, which could reveal anything from users’ political opinions to their sexual preferences. Efforts to make it harder for kids to get around age gates have also led policymakers to clamp down on kids’ access to VPNs. State age verification bills in Michigan and Utah have tried to interfere with the privacy protections offered by these tools (the Utah bill is now blocked by a federal court), and Australia’s eSafety Commissioner is nudging social media platforms to detect and block their use. But requiring adult users to prove their age to gain access to a VPN fundamentally defeats the purpose of that privacy-focused technology. It can put many users, particularly journalists and human rights defenders working on…

只需稍加努力，就能找到利用此类信息进行恶意目的的方法，例如将驾驶执照与特定账户和私人在线活动关联起来，这可能会泄露从用户的政治观点到性取向等任何信息。为了增加孩子们绕过年龄门槛的难度，政策制定者也开始限制孩子们使用VPN。密歇根州和犹他州的州级年龄验证法案试图干预这些工具提供的隐私保护（犹他州的法案现已被联邦法院驳回），澳大利亚的电子安全专员也在推动社交媒体平台检测并封锁VPN的使用。然而，要求成年用户证明年龄才能使用VPN，从根本上违背了这种以隐私为核心的技术初衷。这可能会使许多用户，特别是那些从事相关工作的记者和人权捍卫者陷入困境……