The UK’s social media ban comes with a clear goal: protecting young people from the dangers of the online world.

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Announcing a social media ban for under-16s draws that line in the sand. But announcing a ban is one thing, making it work is a different thing entirely.

Age checks put a security guard at the front door. The challenge for social media platforms is that teenagers don’t like to be told ‘no’. Many will conform, but tech-savvy young people are going to search for an open window on the ground floor. Finding a workaround to age verification becomes their goal, especially for those who have built a large portion of their digital lives on social media. We’ve seen it already in Australia. The government banned social media for under-16s in December 2025, and three months later, 80% of under-16s in Australia were still using it.

Imposing a ban creates two core complexities when trying to keep people out. The first is that some will turn to VPNs, an........

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