Thirty organisations representing young people across Europe have a message for the adults drafting laws in their name: don’t ban us from social media; make it safe. They are not the same thing. In an open letter to European policymakers considering a possible ban, they put it simply: “The failure to address the root causes of harm does not justify our exclusion, not even temporarily.” The letter goes on: “Social media are far more than entertainment – especially for marginalised young people, including LGBTQIA+, disabled, religious minorities and migrant communities. They are lifelines, offering access to information, community and support that may not exist elsewhere.”The National Youth Council of Ireland and youth organisations nationwide have signed the letter. At a recent Oireachtas Committee hearing, a representative of the Ombudsman for Children’s Youth Advisory Panel said: “We do not believe that bans offer a meaningful solution. It simply puts the onus on teenagers to stay off social media, rather than making social media channels safer in the first place.” The National Youth Assembly was asked to consider if children should be banned from social media; it recommended instead that the online world be made safe for children. The Online Health Taskforce, which spent a year considering this issue, made 10 robust recommendations, none of which supported a blanket ban of children from social media.Noeline Blackwell, the online safety coordinator with Children’s Rights Alliance which represents more than 160 organisations working with children in Ireland, outlined that while a ban may be attractive to decision-makers wishing to be seen to be doing something, it will not solve the problem: “that the products aren’t safe enough.”International experts, the children’s rights organisations and children themselves are resolute and clear: ban the harmful and illegal content, ban the addictive engagement-based mechanisms, even ban the companies that don’t comply with the regulation, but don’t ban the children.So why is the Irish Government still talking about a ban? The Minister with responsibility on this, Patrick O’Donovan, has said online safety for children is the “sole priority” during Ireland’s holding of the EU presidency, which begins in July. He said “there is no greater responsibility on politicians ... than to protect our children and our young people. None.” He’s right – and it’s great to hear him say it.But why is he not listening to the experts? A ban presents a seemingly simple solution to rising concerns about children’s online safety – but an instinctive one. Since Australia led the way in December, at least eight countries across Europe, including France, Spain and Norway, have announced similar measures. And now, Ireland has announced that they will ban social media for children under 16 if agreement is not reached at EU level to do so.[ Committee stops short of under-16 social media ban but wants end to ‘harmful’ algorithmsOpens in new window ]Appropriately designated and robustly enforced age limits for online platforms make sense; but arbitrarily banning all children under 16 or 15 or 14 (all currently being discussed across Europe) does not. In Ireland, children under 13 are already supposed to be restricted from social media, yet 71 per cent of 8–12-year-olds have their own accounts.The problem is the business model itself, and an arbitrary ban does not reform it. If anything, tasking platforms with their own age assurance solutions risks giving them another avenue for data collection – these, the very companies whose surveillance of children’s behaviour is part of what is driving the problem. A 13-year-old boy displays a message on Snapchat after his account was locked for age verification in Sydney in December 2025. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images Meanwhile, early evidence from Australia suggests the restrictions are easy to circumvent and do nothing to regulate the many places children can still access without issue – gaming platforms, AI chatbots, porn providers and browsers that give them access to the very platforms the ban is supposed to block. So, what’s the solution?Every toy that enters the EU child market must first earn a CE (Conformité Européenne) mark. Online platforms face no equivalent requirement. We regulate the toy before it reaches the shelf; we need to regulate the digital products and features before they’re rolled out to children. We need an online classification board with the authority to set the criteria a platform must meet before it can access any given age group – criteria determined by independent regulators (with input from children), not by the companies themselves. Age verification would be enforced by robust, independently provided and privacy-preserving mechanisms to ensure that only the products and services deemed safe for each age group are provided access to them. The principle is simple: if a platform wants access to children, it must first prove it is safe for them. [ Snapchat: ‘I’ve seen so much stuff. I would block them after but the damage was done’Opens in new window ]Will this mean that certain age groups of children will be restricted from certain products? Of course. The very nature of certain products makes them unsuitable for children. In Ireland, we ban children from accessing products we cannot make safe, like alcohol, nicotine or those associated with gambling, and even then, many still suffer the harms of exposure. But the online world is different: it can be made safe. Children’s Ombudsman Niall Muldoon said: “We can demand products be designed with children’s rights, health and welfare in mind rather than being engineered to maximise addiction, surveillance and profit and we can ensure only those products get access to our children. Which is what the children and young people actually tell us they want: to be protected, not excluded.”Will it force social media companies to develop safe, non-addictive products that those under 18 (currently a third of all global users) can use to socialise with each other and seek out age-appropriate sources of education, entertainment or verified news? Yes; unlike banning them, this is the actual solution. Politicians have acknowledged that there is a problem. That’s a start. Now they must stop reaching for the headline-friendly fix and instead confront the real source of harm: the products themselves. The experts have spoken. The evidence is clear. The children themselves have told us what they need. We strongly urge our political leaders to listen.Alex Cooney is the CEO of CyberSafeKids. Eoghan Cleary is a secondary schoolteacher, children’s rights activist and founding member of the Gen Free national campaign for online protections for children.