6 in 10 want social media ban for children in US: Survey

More than half of voters in the U.S., or 59 percent, want a similar social media ban to the one passed in Australia last month, which barred children under the age of 16 from using the platforms, a new Quinnipiac University poll found.

The law in Australia affects social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook, X and Reddit, but it will not be enforced for YouTube.

According to the poll, while roughly 6 in 10 respondents wanted to see a similar ban to the one in Australia, 31 percent said the opposite.

Most groups supported a similar ban, except for voters aged 18 to 34, who were more divided in their answers, the survey revealed. Fifty percent of voters in that age group supported a similar ban, while 46 percent said they did not, the poll found.

The polling comes on the heels of a Supreme Court announcement saying it would take up whether a law that could ban TikTok nationwide violates the First Amendment.

In the order issued Wednesday, the court said it will hold oral arguments Jan. 10 over the video sharing platform’s request to invalidate the law requiring it to divest from its Chinese parent company or face a ban. The social media platform had filed an emergency application asking the justices to delay their Jan. 19 divest-or-ban deadline earlier this week.

The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted Dec. 12-16 among 924 self-identified registered voters nationwide. The margin of error was 3.2 percentage points.

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