ASEAN Beat | Society | Southeast Asia

Safeguarding Children Online: Beyond Singapore’s Social Media Ban Debate

Singapore might consider championing a roadmap of “supported autonomy.”

Singapore is considering stronger measures to protect children online, including an age-based tiered approach to social media access for those aged below 18. Under the proposal, children under 13 would be restricted from accessing social media platforms, while those aged between 13 and 17 can continue to have access but with additional safeguards designed to reduce online harms. 

This move aligns with the global attempt to address this issue, most notably seen in Australia’s pioneering legislation to ban social media access for those under 16.

The intention to shield children from cyberbullying, exploitation, scams, harmful content, and addictive platform features is unquestionably laudable. As the regulator has already acknowledged, a complete ban on children’s access to social media is unlikely to be practical. Although an age-based tiered approach may offer a more workable alternative, it nevertheless faces many of the same implementation challenges.

Robust age verification remains necessary, while registration through government- issued identity documents would raise significant privacy and cybersecurity concerns.

Facial age estimation systems, introduced as a privacy-preserving method, have shown significant reliability issues: some 11-year-olds were incorrectly identified as adults, and users can easily deceive the algorithms. 

Also, the age gate can be easily bypassed through falsifying one’s date of birth, using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), or accounts created under the identity of their parents or older siblings. 

Underage users who circumvent age restrictions will lose the existing protections designed for their child account, potentially increasing their exposure to online harms. 

A social media ban might foster rebellion and isolation without offering a valuable alternative for meaningful social connection. If children spend less time on banned social media and switch to other digital activities, such as streaming or gaming, rather than offline activities, their exposure to harmful content may not decrease but may shift to different platforms. The ban might even risk pushing adolescents toward less-regulated platforms not included in the list, where content moderation is limited.

Prohibiting social media access for those below a certain age may inevitably create an unintended “dangerous cliff edge.” When they pass the age restriction, they will still face the same dangers of misinformation, cyberbullying, and harmful content. Without supervised exposure, they will have to enter the digital world unprepared. A ban itself does not teach children how to verify information or how to protect themselves online. 

The relationship between social media use and adolescents’ mental well-being is more complex than is often assumed. A review of recent large-scale studies has found only a weak link between adolescents’ daily digital technology use and their well-being, with no practically or clinically significant evidence supporting that one causes the other. Another review also noted that the impact of social media on adolescents’ mental health can be context-based and may be shaped by usage........

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