This House would require children to obtain parental consent to use social media until age 16.

tech

Australia legislated this in 2024. The U.S. surgeon general recommended a similar policy in 2023. The COPPA framework is now widely seen as insufficient given the data showing adolescent mental-health correlations.

Background

Australia's 2024 law mandates platforms enforce a minimum age of 16 with substantial fines for non-compliance. France passed a softer 15-year minimum in 2023. US states Utah, Arkansas, and Texas have passed parental-consent laws; most have been preliminarily enjoined on First Amendment grounds. Jonathan Haidt's The Anxious Generation argues the smartphone-plus-social-media combination caused the post-2012 adolescent mental health crisis. Critics (Candice Odgers) point out the correlation evidence is weaker than Haidt presents and that verification regimes create their own privacy harms.

Government opens with

Adolescent brains do not have the prefrontal development to manage variable-reward platforms; protection is not paternalism.

Opposition responds with

Verification requirements push kids to lie about their age and operate without any of the safety features age-gating was supposed to enable.

Take it. Against the AI.

Pick a side. Three minutes per speech. The AI takes the other side in your chosen format. Judge ballot at the end.

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This week's motions

Tuesday, May 26, 2026

This House would mandate open-source release of any AI model trained on public-internet data.

Monday, May 25, 2026

This House would scrap legacy admissions at universities.

Sunday, May 24, 2026

This House would require new buildings to be carbon-neutral by 2030.