ISTANBUL — A comprehensive new policy report by the Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM) has challenged the effectiveness of blanket social media bans for children, arguing that evidence supporting strict age-based exclusions remains highly limited. Instead of outright prohibitions, the prominent Turkish think tank is advocating for a nuanced "gradual access model" tailored to age groups and specific platform risks.
The report, titled "Children’s Access to Social Media: Policy Proposals for Turkey," was published in September and compiled by EDAM’s education and technology policy researchers. It warns that relying solely on account closures is an insufficient metric for child safety. Instead, the authors call for a balanced regulatory framework that protects children from harmful content, unwanted online contact, and addictive platform designs, while simultaneously safeguarding their access to vital educational videos, language-learning tools, and exam preparation resources.
In analyzing global approaches to digital child safety, EDAM evaluated recent regulatory frameworks and legislative attempts in Australia, France, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. The report emphasizes that because these international regulations are still in their infancy, there is currently a lack of long-term, causal empirical evidence proving that blanket age restrictions successfully improve online safety outcomes for minors.
Account Deletions Rise, but Actual Usage Persists
To understand the practical impact of strict age limits, the EDAM report closely examined the initial outcomes of Australia’s policy, which restricts children under the age of 16 from holding accounts on designated social media platforms.
Following the implementation of the Australian restrictions, social media platforms reported removing, disabling, or restricting approximately 4.7 million accounts. However, the EDAM report urges caution in interpreting this figure. The authors point out that 4.7 million represents the total number of accounts affected, rather than individual children. Because a single child can hold multiple profiles, and because many of the deactivated profiles were inactive, this metric does not provide an accurate picture of how many minors were actually removed from the platforms.
Furthermore, the report highlights preliminary data from a study involving more than 4,000 children and their families in Australia, which reveals a gap between account ownership and actual platform access. Following the implementation of the age restrictions, the percentage of children who reported holding active accounts on the restricted platforms fell from 52.4% to 42.1%. However, the percentage of children who admitted to using these platforms—either through active accounts, passive viewing, or unregistered browsing—only saw a marginal decrease, dropping from 85.9% to 81.5%.
According to EDAM, these statistics indicate that young users frequently find workarounds to access social media content even without official accounts. The think tank concludes that the current data from Australia is insufficient to declare age bans a long-term success for children’s digital safety, as the physical restriction of accounts does not automatically translate to a reduction in online exposure or risk.
Protecting Access to Vital Educational Content
A central pillar of EDAM’s policy proposal is the need to distinguish between different online activities on the same platform, warning that blanket bans risk creating significant collateral damage for children’s education.
The report points out that watching an educational video does not carry the same risk profile as engaging in direct messaging with strangers, posting public comments, or hosting live broadcasts. Today, essential educational materials—such as curriculum support, foreign language tutorials, exam preparation courses, and science and arts content—are often hosted on the very same platforms that feature high-risk social interactive capabilities.
If regulators implement sweeping bans on these platforms, they risk cutting off millions of students from indispensable learning tools. To prevent this, EDAM recommends that Turkish policymakers implement clear, narrow, and auditable exceptions within any digital safety regulations. These exceptions should guarantee uninterrupted access to school communications, educational and scientific content, digital library services, and verified health information. The report insists that efforts to curb addictive or risky interactive features must not render critical pedagogical resources inaccessible to the youth.
Extending Protections Beyond the Age of 15
In evaluating the current regulatory landscape in Turkey, which features a service ban for children under the age of 15 alongside differentiated service obligations for teenagers aged 15 to 17, EDAM suggests a major shift in strategy. The think tank recommends replacing the current binary ban system with a structured, gradual access model that extends robust safety protections to all minors under 18.
For adolescents in the 15–17 age bracket, EDAM argues that platforms must be legally bound to concrete, high-standard safety defaults. Rather than relying on teenagers to adjust their own privacy settings, platforms should be required to implement protective measures automatically.
Among the specific default settings evaluated in the report are:
- Silencing night notifications: Automatically muting alerts during late-night hours to protect sleep patterns.
- Disabling autoplay features: Turning off automatic video progression by default to prevent prolonged, passive consumption.
- Deactivating personalized feeds: Restricting algorithmic personalization for minors by default, thereby limiting the platform’s ability to serve highly addictive, tailored content loops.
The report also addresses the complex issue of age verification. EDAM advises that any mechanism used to verify a user’s age must be designed to protect personal privacy. The verification process should succeed in identifying minors without requiring the unnecessary collection of sensitive government identification documents, thereby preventing potential data breaches and safeguarding the digital privacy of young citizens.
The Risk of Displacement to Less-Regulated Spaces
A major warning highlighted in the EDAM report is the phenomenon of digital displacement. The authors caution that if mainstream, highly visible social media platforms are completely blocked or heavily restricted, children may simply migrate to less-moderated, darker corners of the internet. This includes moving to private chat groups, unmoderated gaming forums, or alternative platforms where safety controls, content moderation, and reporting mechanisms are virtually non-existent. Such a shift could inadvertently expose minors to much higher levels of grooming, radicalization, and explicit content.
While acknowledging that digital literacy education and parental involvement are vital components of child safety, EDAM emphasizes that families cannot be expected to solve this problem alone. Parents face an uphill battle when trying to counter the sophisticated, addictive design features built into modern digital platforms.
To support families, the report recommends that platforms provide parents with clear, easily understandable, and accessible tools to manage screen time and customize account settings. However, EDAM also warns against the dangers of over-surveillance. The authors state that the privacy rights of adolescents must not be entirely erased through unlimited parental monitoring, as a reasonable degree of privacy is essential for healthy development and autonomy during teenage years.
Ultimately, EDAM argues that the success of any digital safety legislation in Turkey must not be judged by superficial metrics, such as the sheer number of closed accounts. Instead, the true measure of policy success should be based on empirical evidence demonstrating a concrete reduction in children’s exposure to harmful content, a decrease in unsolicited and dangerous contacts, and a measurable decline in problematic or addictive digital behavior.
