This is Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, it’s Wednesday, June 17, and I have a question for you: Where were you on the night of June 16, 2026? No need to ask for a lawyer, you aren’t compelled by law to answer me — but if you weren’t watching Argentina play Algeria in the World Cup, you will have to answer to yourself. Soccer is the biggest sport in the history of the world, this year’s World Cup is the biggest tournament in the history of the sport, and one of the game’s all-time greats just turned in a performance for the record books. Lionel Messi recorded a hat trick in Argentina’s 3–0 win over Algeria (and had another goal called back for offside), giving Patrick Mahomes a show in his own house. 

Messi will turn 39 next week, making him exactly one month older than old creaky-bones McGee here, your humble author of today’s edition on social media bans. We’re also turning back the clock with features on one of the wonders of the world and the return of supersonic planes. Defy Father Time with us for 14 minutes for another brain-wrinkling edition of Tangle.

Quick hits.

1. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that the agreement to end the U.S.–Iran war requires Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. Israel has said it will not accept that condition. (The comments) Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported that the deal will allow Iran to immediately begin selling oil and fuel. U.S. officials have also indicated that Iran will have access to a $300 billion fund to help rebuild the country if it meets certain provisions in the deal. (The report)
2. President Donald Trump said he will delay the confirmation hearing of Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence (DNI) to prioritize confirming Clayton’s replacement for U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. The delay could impact the Senate’s efforts to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which Democrats have refused to support until Acting DNI Bill Pulte is replaced. (The update)
3. Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), endorsed by President Trump, advanced in the Republican runoff for Georgia Senate and will face Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) in the general election. Businessman Rick Jackson defeated Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in the state’s Republican gubernatorial runoff; Jackson will face former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) in the general election. (The runoffs) Separately, Trump-backed Rep. Barry Moore (R) won Alabama’s Republican Senate primary runoff in the race to succeed Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R). (The runoff)
4. The Education Department announced that it will move offices overseeing special-education services and civil rights out of its purview, transferring their work to the Department of Health and Human Services and the Justice Department, respectively. (The announcement)
5. A federal judge temporarily blocked an Idaho law that bars transgender people from using bathrooms that do not correspond with their sex, finding that the law is likely unconstitutional. Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador (R) said he will appeal the ruling. (The ruling)

Today’s topic.

Social media bans. On Monday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that in 2027, the United Kingdom will ban children under 16 from accessing major social media platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube (but not YouTube Kids). Several other countries have passed similar bans, but the UK’s measure will go further, blocking features like live-streaming and communicating with strangers while gaming. Furthermore, Starmer said the regulations will restrict access to artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots designed to simulate romantic or sexual relationships for users under 18 and may also impose curfews on social media use for under-18s. 

Back up: In December 2025, Australia implemented a social media ban for children under 16, becoming the first country to impose restrictions for minors. Malaysia, Spain, France, Austria, Greece, Denmark, and Indonesia have also announced or implemented social media bans for select platforms. 

In the United States, Congress has not taken up legislation to enact similar restrictions, though in 2025, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the Kids Off Social Media Act, which would prevent American children under 13 from making social media accounts. The bill has not been voted on. As of late 2025, several U.S. states had enacted social media bans for minors or laws requiring parental consent for minors to operate social media accounts, though many of those laws were later blocked by courts. Several other states are currently considering bans. 

In a Substack post on Monday, Starmer wrote, “I am simply not prepared to be a bystander when the safety and happiness of our children are at stake… Of course, some children will find a technological work-around. But that doesn’t mean we should not take this step or that it won’t make a difference.” 

The UK Parliament passed the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act in April, which allows it to create targeted rules — like this social media ban — without needing to pass further legislation. To enforce the restrictions, the UK plans to impose fines on companies that fail to comply with the law, and Starmer hopes to put those regulations into effect by the spring of 2027. 

Some experts have questioned the efficacy of such bans. Jon Crowcroft, a communications systems professor at the University of Cambridge, said, “There is a real risk this will drive some users to worse sites, and policing devices is close to impossible technically.” Others have noted the limited initial impacts of Australia’s ban; in March, Australia’s internet regulator published a poll that showed 70% of parents said their children still accessed social media platforms. The United States Embassy in the UK also published a notice on June 5 opposing the UK’s ban.

Today, we’ll explore perspectives on social media bans from the right, left, and British writers. Then, Managing Editor Ari Weitzman gives his take.

What the right is saying.

• The right is mixed on the ban, with some suggesting it will be ineffective. 
• Others say Britain is taking necessary action. 

In Reason, Reem Ibrahim wrote “the evidence suggests [bans] won’t work.”

“Regardless of how the ban will be enforced, one thing is certain: It will come at the expense of the privacy of all British internet users. The government cannot ban children from social media without asking everyone else to prove they are not children,” Ibrahim said. “Ofcom, Britain’s communications regulator, says in its own guidance under the Online Safety Act that age checks can include facial age estimation, open banking, digital identity services, credit card checks, email-based age estimation, mobile network checks, and photo-ID matching.”

“The government’s plan appears to have been designed by people with very little understanding of how teenagers actually use the internet. As one survey of Europeans aged 13 to 18 found, 74 percent of teenagers on average said they watched videos on YouTube to learn something new for school, and 71 percent on average watched videos on YouTube to learn something new for fun or outside of school,” Ibrahim wrote. “Social media is also used to stay in touch with friends and family… A majority of both girls (71%) and boys (60%) see being online as good for helping to build and maintain friendships.”

In The Daily Caller, John Loftus said Britain “[made] a good call for once.”

“Britain is famous for its nanny state rules, which include extremely strict anti-smoking rules, and high ‘sin taxes’ and a ‘sugar levy’ to curb alcohol consumption and lower obesity rates. The current government is also pro-censorship, and more generally, Britain does not have an enshrined First Amendment as we do in the States. But Starmer’s decision to ban social media for children is nevertheless the right move,” Loftus wrote. “No one in their right mind believes it’s healthy for a 10-year-old girl to be doomscrolling on TikTok every minute of the day. It’s almost like giving a child cigarettes.

“A study published in 2025 found that social media and smartphone addiction among kids is linked to a higher risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. Another study found that nearly half of kids aged 13–17 said social media made them feel worse about their bodies,” Loftus said. “Yet there is certainly a political calculation. The policy appears popular in Britain, and Starmer could desperately use a win. It could also be a middle finger to American CEOs and Big Tech companies.”

What the left is saying.

• The left is also mixed on the bans, with some saying regulation is a better option.
• Others note that restrictions on different addictive products have been effective. 

In The Los Angeles Times, Jessica L. Schleider argued “if social platforms are harmful, don’t just ban kids. Regulate the harms.”

“These [bans] are politically attractive. They are simple, signal action and promise protection without requiring the nuanced, slow and logistically complex work of regulating trillion-dollar companies,” Schleider wrote. “But blunt-force bans are the wrong response to this moment… Bans without systemic oversight are worse than ineffective; they are a form of policy abdication. They kick the can down the road, shift responsibility away from technology companies and give up on the far harder task of making online spaces genuinely safer for the millions of young people who already use them every day and will likely continue to do so.”

“Across large studies, the association between overall time spent on social media and mental health outcomes is often small or inconsistent. What matters far more than screen time alone is what young people encounter online, how content is delivered, and whether platforms are structured to support or undermine users’ well-being,” Schleider said. “Responding to that reality with bans aimed at youth access rather than regulation of platform design is a profound misalignment of responsibility. It places the burden of safety on adolescents and families while leaving the systems that generate harm intact.”

In The Atlantic, Keith Humphreys and Jonathan Caulkins suggested “a social-media ban really could do a lot of good.”

“The long experience of governments trying to restrict young people’s access to temptation goods of other kinds — drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, pornography — justifies cautious optimism,” Humphreys and Caulkins wrote. “The ban might deliver some truly valuable benefits, letting youthful missteps remain local and ephemeral, rather than searing permanent brands onto developing psyches, and giving young people more time to develop the in-person social skills and connections that make life meaningful.”

“Positive outcomes from raising the minimum legal age for addictive substances do not guarantee success for imposing minimum legal ages on social-media accounts. Consuming alcohol, tobacco, or cannabis requires the acquisition of a physical object. This creates regulatory checkpoints… that are hard to replicate online,” Humphreys and Caulkins said. “However, in other respects, banning access to social media may be easier. Many teens appear to want to be off social media; they see it as detrimental to their own well-being but nevertheless feel they have to be on it to keep up with their peers… A ban might solve this collective-action problem.”

What UK writers are saying.

• Some British writers see the ban as government overkill.
• Others say Starmer was right to pursue bold action to address a pressing issue. 

In The Spectator, Andrew Tettenborn called Britain’s ban “stupid and unenforceable.”

“The responsibility for supervising what children read and see should lie squarely with parents, who after all can dictate the internet setup in their homes and choose which, if any, smartphones to give their offspring,” Tettenborn wrote. “The government could have subtly reinforced this idea, for instance by requiring that all phones and routers sold have parental controls set to ‘on’ by default, only changeable by the account holder. The idea that this is something for the state and its none-too-subtle mega-agency Ofcom sends an unfortunate message.”

“There is much wholesome educational content on Youtube, ranging from maths to history to current affairs: schools indeed increasingly encourage the young to draw on it for the purposes of homework and further study. Again, teenagers often have a keen interest in computing, and for this Reddit is one of the best sources. But no dice,” Tettenborn said. “Whatever Keir Starmer says, there are big questions over whether any of this is actually enforceable, something the Australians, who brought in a similar ban a short time ago, have already found out. Children can, and undoubtedly will, importune friends or elder siblings over 16 to lend them their phones or tablets, which at a stroke defeats the object.”

The Guardian editorial board praised “the UK’s new, tougher approach to child safety.”

“How people feel about this depends to some extent on their attitude to big tech. Age verification is controversial because it could carry implications for adults as well, depending on how it is implemented,” the board wrote. “Last week, Sir Keir [Starmer] committed to compulsory nudity-detection on all devices if Apple and Google do not come up with a software fix to protect children by September. There are legitimate fears that data protection laws may not be sufficient to protect privacy if users are required to upload documents to prove who they are.”

“But if much remains unclear, this week’s gear shift is still welcome. For too long, tech companies have used their market power to dictate terms,” the board said. “Sir Keir’s move represents a belated recognition that while these businesses have changed the world in ways that many people appreciate, their overarching goal of maximising engagement with their products is not aligned with human flourishing — and too frequently undermines it.”

My take.

Reminder: “My take” is a section where we give ourselves space to share a personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don’t unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• Kids’ social media use is a demonstrable problem.
• Total bans and age restrictions have failed to mitigate similar harms — but total policy abdication has failed, too.
• My ideal solution is for the government to mandate more parental tools and for a gradual and thorough cultural shift.

Managing Editor Ari Weitzman: A natural reaction, when learning about a substance or behavior that is shown to be harmful, is to want the government to ban it. I understand the impulse; if studies show that something is bad for you, then why should it be legal? But I also think jumping straight to outright bans is an unimaginative solution that’s prone to failure, sometimes backfires, and can create bigger problems than were associated with the thing the government just made illegal.

Policy is hard.

Social media use has been very convincingly demonstrated to have negative impacts on minors. A 2025 review of 57 studies across 21 countries found that daily social media use is associated with increased stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and poor sleep quality. As much as 40% of depressed youth reported high levels of social media use, and spending three or more hours on social media per day has been associated with elevated risk of self harm. Smartphone usage even negatively affects the cervical spine, eyes, and sleep quality. 

Any reasonable person would want to limit those harms, but it doesn’t follow that the best solution is banning every social media app for minors.

I’d like to try an exercise with you. Below, I’m going to give you the stats for three different risk factors. Without knowing what these specific risk factors are (and without clicking the links that back up these claims until later), what do you think the appropriate government response to these factors would be? Should they be banned for everyone, made unavailable or illegal for minors only, or just be left up to every individual to self-manage?

Factor A: As of 2024, 228 million Americans age 12 and older have engaged in behavior associated with Factor A, and 27 million adults have a disordered relationship with it. 50–70% of people with a disordered relationship to Factor A also have a psychiatric disorder at some point in their lives (like depression, anxiety, or suicidality) and 83% have a physical disorder (like hypertension, asthma, or high cholesterol). In a given month, 48% of young adults 18–25 will have engaged in this behavior, which is associated with the deaths of 4,300 individuals under the age of 21 each year. Even limited exposure to Factor A can severely impact an adolescent’s development.

Factor B: Based on a 2024 study, 61% of North American adults engaged in this behavior, and 13.8% did so to a risky degree often associated with a disorder. If a person develops a disorder with Factor B, they have an 82% chance of a co-occurring mental disorder (like substance abuse, mood, or personality disorders) and a 27% chance of a physical disorder (such as respiratory or endocrine disorders). Among minors, between 4% and 8% participated in this behavior in 2024, and 15% of those who did have a risky usage rate. 68% of youth with a disordered relationship to Factor B also have a psychiatric disorder, and 20% have attempted suicide. Since 2024, access to and usage of Factor B has increased.

Factor C: Roughly one third of all U.S. adults participate in behavior associated with Factor C, which has an associated 6%–15% increase in mortality. 46% of people engaged in this behavior report lower than average mental health scores, and the behavior has a 48% increased risk of heart disease and 50% increased risk of obesity. In 2024, 60%–70% of teenagers engaged in disordered behavior with Factor C, which has been causally linked to poor brain development and heightened anxiety, stress, and depression (and has a higher associated risk of diabetes). A 2025 study has also implicated Factor C in 21% of all fatal car crashes, while another from the same year has linked Factor C to an elevated risk of cancer.

I’ll ask again: What should the government’s policies be towards these risk factors? Really take a minute to consider it.

Maybe you think that the best policy is just to make them totally illegal. For a long time, that was the U.S. policy regarding online gambling (Factor B). The Federal Wire Act of 1961 prohibited interstate transmission of bets and wagers by wire, and in 2006, Congress made it illegal for companies to knowingly process funds won through online gambling with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. However, that same act also created a specific carveout for fantasy sports that “reflect the relative knowledge and skill of the participants,” which led to a boom in “one-day fantasy” leagues, which led to the proliferation of online sports betting, which (along with a major Supreme Court ruling) led to its legalization in many states. In essence, the sensible attempt to create carveouts for what at the time were pretty benign and friendly use cases ended up inviting companies to explore loopholes, which became so common that much of the regulation was reduced to a farce.

I know the rebuttal: That’s a problem we should fix with sports betting, not one we’re doomed to recreate with social media. But social media restrictions still face the same problem online gambling faced: How do you define the problem? Australia’s ban on social media also extends to YouTube, which means that kids can’t have accounts — but it doesn’t mean they can’t go to the website. Now, kids are watching videos without signing in, making it harder for parents to control their child’s usage. Sites like Reddit don’t require a login to view posts, either. How can these sites be made 100% inaccessible, by law, without state censorship?

Maybe you think the best policy is to try to age-gate social media. That’s essentially our country’s stance with alcohol (Factor A) — and yet, kids still access and consume alcohol. And that’s a physical substance. Think of how much harder it is to create a law to age-gate a web application. Even without creating accounts, kids with access to smartphones will still find websites where they can scroll mindlessly (like they’re doing in Australia). Solving this problem isn’t as easy as individual states banning porn websites for everyone; as Reem Ibrahim wrote in Reason (under “What the right is saying”), it’s hard to imagine an effective age restriction that doesn’t effectively apply to everyone.

Without age-gating, maybe you think that the best policy is no policy, that the government shouldn’t be involved at all and social media use should be left up entirely to the individual. That’s the approach to sleep deprivation (Factor C) — and that makes sense, intuitively. You wouldn’t want the government to mandate a bed time and then be faced with the unseemly question of how to enforce it, even if this is the most prevalent of all the problems I talked about today.

But here, the government’s lack of any stance or policy at all actually exacerbates this issue. Schools that push their start times back show increased sleep for students, better academic performance, and improved wellbeing. And yet, most public schools still start between 7:30 and 8:30 AM. So no policy isn’t necessarily a good policy, either. 

That principle applies to the other examples, too. States where online sports betting is legal have 25%–30% more bankruptcies, and binge drinking is higher in countries where the drinking age is lower. Clearly some level of government control can make a difference.

Policy is hard.

In an ideal world, I’d like to see families be better equipped to manage social media usage on their own — a federal law requiring age restrictions and parental controls, for instance, which Congress has already tried and failed to pass. I’d also like to see our cultural norms regarding public phone usage change; some people, like my favorite modern singer-songwriter, are already banning phones from their concerts. Describing how I think that cultural shift should unfold would take another 4,000 words at minimum — but for today, I’m very skeptical that government bans will help us get there.

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This day in history.

Arjumand Banu Begum was the fifth Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan’s third and favorite wife. She was so beloved that her husband gave her the name Mumtaz Mahal, meaning “Exalted One of the Palace.” Mumtaz was his trusted companion and confidant during military campaigns for the 19 years they were married. Tragedy struck, however, during the birth of her fourteenth child: She died of postpartum hemorrhage on June 17, 1631, after prolonged labor. According to legend, Shah Jahan was so grieved that he went into secluded mourning for a year, and his hair turned white.

During her life, Mumtaz Mahal supposedly made Shah Jahan promise her to build a palace tomb, and to visit it each year on her death anniversary. As a monument of his love for his wife, Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal, one of the wonders of the modern world, in modern-day Agra, India. The palace, made of ivory marble, took 22 years to complete, but once it was done, Mumtaz Mahal’s body was interred there. According to legend, Shah Jahan intended to build a “Black Taj” across the river to hold his own body, but war with his sons interrupted his plans. After his death, the new ruler — his son Aurangzeb — interred Shah Jahan in the Taj Mahal, alongside his wife.

Under the radar.

On June 6, President Trump issued an executive order directing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to lift restrictions on “overland” supersonic flights. The rules, which have been in place for over five decades, prevented civil aircraft from flying at supersonic speeds over U.S. landmasses largely due to the loud, supersonic boom these flights produce. The order calls on the FAA to “establish an interim noise-based-certification standard” and would benefit supersonic flight companies such as Boom Supersonic, whose aircraft have already been ordered or preordered by United, American, and Japan Airlines. Forbes has the story.

The extras.

• One year ago today we covered changes to the Trump administration’s deportation priorities.
• The most clicked link in our last regular newsletter was the report on the B-52 bomber crash in California.
• Nothing to do with politics: Amid talk of social media bans, a new way to waste hours online as StumbleUpon re-launches.
• Our last survey: 4,294 readers responded to our survey on the UFC event at the White House with 72% saying they are not UFC fans and dislike that the White House hosted fights. “I agree that the real issue is the corruption and grift associated with anything Trump does,” one respondent said. “The left melted down as expected and they wonder why they can’t connect with young men,” said another.

Have a nice day.

One day while riding the New York subway with AirPods in, Molly Selin noticed that the woman beside her was asking her a question. That question sparked a conversation that blossomed into a friendship; Molly went from a stranger next to Maria on the train to visiting her apartment for dinner once a week. One day, Molly made a TikTok video about their friendship, and about her commitment to helping Maria fulfill her lifelong dream of traveling back to Puerto Rico, the island home that she’d left seven decades earlier. Molly’s video quickly went viral, and Molly and Maria will visit Puerto Rico in July. TODAY has the story.