Adults again decided to ban the Internet, in which they do not understand anything

To be honest, I thought that only we had officials with a tenacity worthy of better application, trying to turn back the clock. To be back in 1975, Bill Gates had not yet graduated from Harvard, and the child could encounter something dangerous except in the yard, where he was allowed to walk.

Turns out not. In the UK, which is difficult to suspect of dislike for technological progress, decided to seriously engage in saving children from the Internet. And so thoroughly that even services specially created for children are now at risk of getting under restrictions. The new restrictions could potentially affect up to 150 platforms. That is, at first, adults invented the children’s Internet to protect children from adults. I also found out that children’s Internet is not enough. And now they are going to save the children from him.

And then what? Isolate the principle from the computer? Television? Electricity? In the yards, too, for a long time already impossible - there are maniacs.

Childhood under sixteen

In June 2026, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his intention to ban children under the age of sixteen from using the largest social networks. The new rules are expected to be introduced in the spring of 2027. The messengers have decided not to touch. But the restrictions will affect certain functions of other services: live broadcasts, communication with strangers, some algorithms and recommendations. For sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds, dangerous functions are supposed to be turned off by default. A separate story is artificial intelligence. Romantic AI chatbots that mimic intimate relationships should become unavailable to minors.

All this is due to the care of children. To argue that the Internet is dangerous is pointless. Yes, there are bullying, scammers, adults who pose as peers, forbidden communities. There are algorithms that can hold a child in front of a screen for hours. It is dangerous to live, if anything..

But here's what's interesting. Instead of forcing tech companies to fix dangerous mechanisms, it’s somehow much easier to ban children from using the services themselves.

What if the service is designed specifically for children, but still contains potentially dangerous features? Then, apparently, ban him.

There is no final decision on bans yet. In contrast, the British government has pledged to preserve educational resources. But the fact that such platforms have been discussed is very indicative.

Adults have no way of determining where the child’s protection ends and the child’s isolation from modern life begins.

No way. Where'd the kids go?

Australia followed this path before the rest. In December 2025, a ban on the use of major social networks by children under the age of sixteen came into force.

In January, authorities reported an impressive result: about 4.7 million underage accounts were deleted, disabled or restricted. But the four million closed accounts are far from the four million children who dropped their phones, went outside and started playing ball and hide and seek. A teenager can register under a different name, indicate someone else's age or use the parent page.

- The psychological danger of overcontrol is reactive resistance, explains psychologist Rodion Chepalov. A teenager begins to circumvent prohibitions for the sake of independence. For example, instead of a children’s app, it goes to an anonymous chat, where there are more risks.

That is, they tried to protect the child from a well-known social network, where at least moderation, complaints and parental control exist. And he went to a place where none of that might be.

And who won?

- Bans protect children only when they reduce real risks, not only restrict freedom. I would recommend limiting the dangerous functions of the Internet, not all communication, and teaching children digital security.

There is another problem that adults rarely think about. Let's say the teenager has bypassed the restriction. Registered on a platform banned for his age. And there faced blackmail, harassment or harassment. Who will he go to for help? To the parents who first ask how he got there? It is possible that he will be left alone with his problem. And then the ban, invented for security, turns into an additional reason to keep quiet.

And in Russia?

Of course, we also discuss restrictions for minors. In late October, information appeared that Roskomnadzor had prepared an initiative on mandatory identification of children in social networks and restricting access for those who are not yet fourteen years old. However, the agency itself soon denied the information about the preparation of such a bill. Roskomnadzor said it considered it necessary to provide users with content appropriate to their age. Therefore, it is impossible to say that Russia has already decided to ban social networks for children.

But the discussion itself has not gone away.

I want to understand one simple thing. Are we — in the sense of adults — really going to raise a generation that, until a certain age, will live apart from the digital world? And then, at the age of sixteen, we solemnly hand the teenager a phone and say: congratulations, now you can get acquainted with algorithms, fraudsters, neural networks and the rest of humanity?

Or better at forty? No risk at all.

Only it won't work.

The modern child does not live apart from technology. For him, the digital environment is not some exotic place where he sneaks out of real life. That's part of his life. And if adults don't understand that, the problem may not be just children.

“We are denying ourselves the opportunity to accompany the child.”

- When people talk about children’s Internet, they usually mean two things: special resources for children and ways to make the regular Internet safer, explains Larisa Aleshina, a teacher, Candidate of Philology, Associate Professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.

There are educational platforms that develop games, sites with cartoons and tasks. There are safe search, age filters, parental controls.

But none of these tools guarantee absolute transparency.

- The situation with the tightening of restrictions looks like an attempt to solve the problem “on the perimeter”: to close access so that there is no risk, says Aleshin. But for the teacher, another question is important here: not “where we will not let them,” but “what we will teach them while they are there.”.

Exactly. We don’t forbid a child from going outside until the age of sixteen just because there are cars, unpleasant people and sometimes crimes. We teach him to cross the road properly and not talk to strangers.

Why should things be different with the internet?

- If we just remove the sites, we do not remove the tasks of the child’s development, but deprive ourselves of the opportunity to accompany them, the teacher continues. Real protection is not isolation, but preparation for a world where there are no perfectly safe zones.

Moreover, Aleshin does not call for the release of children in free digital swimming. For preschoolers, strict control is necessary. For younger teens, it’s a combination of technical constraints and conversations. And we need to talk more and more about critical thinking, digital ethics, manipulation, and personal boundaries.

In other words, protection must grow up with the child. Not the same for a five-year-old and a fifteen-year-old.

Why is it easier to ban adults?

Maria Dobrina, Candidate of Economic Sciences, Associate Professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, draws attention to another point. According to her, the danger is created not only by the sites themselves, but also by mechanisms that force users to spend as much time on them as possible. Endless tape. Algorithms that select content so that a person cannot come off.

- The criterion here is simple: protection limits a specific risk, such as live streaming or communicating with strangers. Control limits the very access and autonomy of the child, explains the expert.

It's one thing to require a platform to prevent a stranger from texting a ten-year-old. It’s quite another thing to ban a ten-year-old from using the platform, because there could theoretically be a stranger.

In the first case, the responsibility lies with those who create the digital environment. In the second, the problem is solved at the expense of the child.

Of course, the ban looks more spectacular. It can be announced from the podium, enter into the law, report on millions of blocked accounts. And teaching a child to recognize manipulation is much more difficult. This requires time, patience, competent teachers and parents who at least approximately understand how modern content works.

And the result of such education is impossible to calculate beautifully by the end of the quarter.

Don't bring the children back. Teach them the future

I don’t think children should be allowed everything. And yes, tech companies certainly have to be responsible for what happens at their sites. But I don't like the idea that safety can be ensured by simply excluding a child from modern life. Because it's still impossible. So why be hypocritical? We do not raise our children so that they will be under our care for the rest of their lives.

We grow them for independent living. This life will not be like the one we grew up in. Some people don’t want to do the opposite.