I, as an Australian, have been saying all along that the social media ban should focus on the addictive and problematic features of social media, rather than a blanket ban. Hell there was a good quote I saw recently on Bluesky by Lance MacDonald:

“People saying “kids will find a way around this” have no idea what “this” is. When it comes to YouTube, there’s nothing for them to find a way around. The government is forcing all kids to have raw unfiltered access to YouTube. The only thing they’re removing is parental controls.”

The EU is at least acknowledging the harmful elements. Here’s hoping they go “ban on the harmful features of social media without age verification”. Then again if the Google Play Store can serve as a middleman on that front then Google will get their wish of being an internet gatekeeper and these features will be enabled by default even for adults (which it shouldn’t be).