The Federal Chancellor is open to a social media ban for children. Australia has shown the way by blocking millions of accounts. For FOCUS columnist Jan Fleischhauer, this puts an end to the central counterargument: the alleged technical impossibility.

“The Australians started. They said it couldn’t be done, it wasn’t technically feasible. Then we saw that it could be done quite well.” If the legislature sets clear rules and threatens penalties, this will also work for platform companies.

He doesn’t accept the fact that young people can circumvent bans: “Just because there are circumvention offenses, also evident with alcohol or heroin, you would now say: No, pay attention, it doesn’t make any sense that we have a ban there.” No law is perfect, but that doesn’t mean you give it up.

The fairy tale of digital participation

He is particularly outraged by the participation argument – Fleischhauer makes a provocative comparison: “We shouldn’t restrict children’s participation in fentanyl and heroin?”

The comparison is deliberately intended to be drastic. Fleischhauer points to “a ton of research” into what excessive social media consumption can do – “right up to physical changes in brain structure. You don’t want to release that.”

While playgrounds are TÜV-tested and parents accompany their children to the classroom, Leave it to algorithms on social media. “But in the evening or afternoon you give the children into the hands of Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and others. They say: ‘Trust us. We have this totally under control.’ Ha, ha, ha.”

And if Brussels blocks?

If EU law prevents national initiatives based on the Digital Services Act, Fleischhauer has clear words: “Folks, that’s enough. Then take us to your powerful European Court of Justice.”

It becomes clear: the father of five takes no prisoners when it comes to child protection.