Escaping the sandbox

This week, France became the first European country to pass a social media ban. Under-15s will be blocked from opening new accounts on social media from September, and banned entirely from January 2027. As the BBC notes, implementation will require everyone in France to prove they are over 15 to use social media. Other European countries may follow. At the New York Times, Mark Landler reports that similar laws are in progress in Canada, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. The EU is considering a bloc-wide law. The UK announced a ban to begin in 2027 last month and published a fact sheet last week – unless new prime minister Andy Burnham changes tack, as he has by canceling digital IDs. At Le Monde, Florian Reynaud traces the origins of this whole idea of social media bans to a 2019 article in The Atlantic by Conor Friedersdorf. In it, Friedersdorf proposed not only a ban on social media sites for kids but a separate kid-friendly “Internet” with services designed just for them (this…