EFFector

California's Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Social Media Ban

Episode Summary

We'd all like the internet to be a better place—for kids and adults alike. But in the name of online safety, governments around the world are racing to impose a dangerous new system of control.

Episode Notes

We'd all like the internet to be a better place—for kids and adults alike. But in the name of online safety, governments around the world are racing to impose a dangerous new system of control.

Following Australia's lead, California is now looking to ban anyone under 16 from accessing social media. That means putting much of the internet behind an age gate—a checkpoint that forces every user, regardless of age, to hand over even more sensitive information to tech companies.

Are age gates the silver bullet to the internet's problems they're being promoted as? Or are we being sold a bill of goods? Read more here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/act-now-stop-californias-paternalistic-and-privacy-destroying-social-media-ban

EFFector is a podcast by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. Become an EFF member today at https://eff.org/podfan