Greece just did what Australia tried and France debated: ban social media for children under 15.

The Greek government announced a nationwide prohibition on social media access for anyone under 15, citing rising anxiety and sleep problems among young people. It's one of the strictest tech regulations in the EU and could set a precedent for other countries considering age restrictions.

The research is pretty clear at this point: Social media correlates with increased anxiety, depression, and sleep disruption in adolescents. Study after study shows the same patterns. The question isn't whether platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat harm kids - it's whether government bans actually work.

Australia tried age verification in 2023. It failed spectacularly. Teenagers are better at circumventing technical controls than governments are at implementing them. VPNs are free. Fake birthdates are easy. And platforms have zero financial incentive to enforce restrictions that would cut their user base.

The Greek law doesn't specify technical enforcement mechanisms, which is the first sign of trouble. How do you verify a user's age without creating a surveillance infrastructure that privacy advocates will rightfully oppose? Government-issued ID verification? That creates massive data collection risks. Biometric age estimation? Even worse.

Here's the uncomfortable truth: Effective age verification requires the kind of invasive identity systems that most people - including the politicians pushing these bans - would reject if they understood the implementation.

The alternative is self-reporting, which doesn't work. Mark Zuckerberg testified to Congress that Meta already prohibits users under 13. Every parent knows their 11-year-old has an Instagram account anyway.

I'm sympathetic to the goal. The mental health crisis among young people is real, and social media clearly plays a role. But bans without enforcement mechanisms are performative legislation. They let politicians claim they're protecting children while changing nothing.

The technology to verify age exists. The question is whether we're willing to build the kind of identity infrastructure required to enforce it - and whether that cure is worse than the disease.