The Kids Are Online: Are Social Media Bans the Answer? w/ Cori Crider and Pamela Wisniewski

Almost everyone studying kids’ safety online agrees that a blanket social media ban won't work. And nearly every government moving on the issue is passing one anyway. This week, a researcher and a policy lawyer dig into why - and what could actually work instead.

More like this: When Kids Can’t Consent: The Case Against Tech in the Classroom w/ Andrew Liddell

This is the final episode in our back-to-school series on tech and kids. Pamela Wisniewski, a principal research scientist at the International Computer Science Institute, spends the first half of the conversation dismantling the myths that are driving most kids-online safety policies: that teens are victims with no agency, that we're all "addicted" in the same way, and that “bad kids” are seeking risk rather than connection. Her research suggests that safety isn't the absence of risk; it's having the agency and support to navigate it. She also explains why age verification often strips that agency from kids and parents alike, without making anyone safer.

Cory Crider, executive director of the Future of Tech Institute, picks up where Pam leaves off. She walks us through Europe's Kids Act, the political pressure that is pushing Brussels to act, and why she'd rather fix toxic feed design than wall kids off from platforms that remain exactly the same underneath. She also gets into how easily an age-check system built for social media could creep into every corner of the internet if nobody's watching.

Further reading & resources:

• Promoting Adolescent Online Safety and Privacy through Human-Centered Computing [VIDEO] — Pam Wisniewski, University of Waterloo CrySP Speaker Series on Privacy
• EU KIDS Act to restrict social media platforms’ access to children in the EU — European Commission
• What is in the EU's planned KIDS Act? — Reuters
• Protection of persons under 18: Seven out of ten children, aged between 10 and 14, think that setting the digital age of majority at 15 is a good idea — Arcom

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Computer Says Maybe is produced by Kushal Dev, Marion Wellington, Van Newman, and Zoe Trout