Should Tanzania reconsider banning children from social media?

DAR ES SALAAM: AT around midday, just outside many secondary schools in Dar es Salaam, something quietly revealing happens. During breaks, students do not rush to the football field or gather in loud clusters as they once did.

Many sit in small groups, eyes fixed on glowing tablet or mobile phone screens for those schools, which allow. Fingers swipe. Heads nod. Laughter erupts at videos adults will never see. This is not mischief.

It is the new normal. For today’s children, social media is not an activity. It is an environment. This is why Australia’s decision to bar children under 16 from major social media platforms has stirred debate far beyond its borders.

While the policy was made in Canberra, its implications reach classrooms, homes tablets and phones here in Tanzania.

Australia argues that the mental and social costs of unrestricted social media use among children have become too high to ignore. Instead of blaming parents or punishing children, the law shifts responsibility to technology companies and demands that they actively prevent under-age access.

The message is clear: profit cannot come before child welfare. Tanzania has not taken such a step. But the challenges Australia is confronting are already visible in our own communities.

Teachers speak quietly about students who cannot focus for more than a few minutes, whose disputes begin online and explode at school, and who arrive exhausted after nights spent chasing likes, comments and online approval. Parents describe a strange distance at home.

“Mtoto yuko karibu nami,” one mother told me, “lakini akili yake iko mtandaoni.”

The child is physically present, but mentally elsewhere. Beyond these everyday struggles lie more troubling realities. Law enforcement officers acknowledge cases where minors are manipulated online, persuaded to share intimate images or drawn into unsafe meetings.

Counsellors describe children who measure their value through followers and views, and others who encounter violence, pornography and adult content long before they have the emotional tools to process it.

The uncomfortable truth is this: Tanzanian children are navigating powerful digital systems largely on their own. Yes, we have laws. Cybercrime legislation. Child protection policies. Content regulations.

Even a growing personal data protection framework. But most of these mechanisms respond after damage has already been done. None of them stop a 12-year-old from opening a social media account using a false date of birth.

None of them meaningfully restrain algorithms designed to keep users, especially young ones, online for as long as possible.

Australia has responded with a blunt instrument. No under-16 accounts. No parental consent exceptions. Platforms must comply or pay heavily.

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Would that approach work in Tanzania? Realistically, no, not in its current form

In many Tanzanian households, phones are shared. Some children rely on social media to access educational material, learn digital skills or support small family businesses.

A poorly designed ban could cut off opportunity as much as it cuts off harm. There are also serious concerns around privacy, especially if age verification requires collecting sensitive personal data in a society still building trust in digital governance.

But dismissing Australia’s model entirely would be a mistake

The real lesson is not the specific age limit. It is the principle behind it. Social media companies must be held responsible for the environments they create, particularly for children.

At present, we expect parents, many of whom did not grow up with these technologies, to police systems they barely understand. We expect children to self-regulate platforms engineered to be addictive.

That imbalance is no longer sustainable

Tanzania needs a firm, locally grounded response. One that recognises children as a high-risk group online and treats their digital safety as a public interest issue, not a private family failure.

This means demanding stronger child-safety standards from platforms operating in our market, including effective moderation in Kiswahili and protections that are enabled by default.

It also means pushing for child-centred platform design: reduced exposure to harmful content, limits on targeted advertising to minors, and privacy settings that protect rather than expose. Finally, regulation must be matched with education.

A parent in Mwanza, Kigoma or Songea cannot supervise risks they do not understand. Digital literacy for parents, teachers and students should be as routine as lessons on health, citizenship or road safety.

Australia has acted because it believes delay carries a cost. Tanzania may not be ready for the same legal line in the sand, but we are closer to that moment than we admit.

The choice before us is simple. We can shape our response deliberately, guided by our realities and values. Or we can continue reacting, after our children have already paid the price.

Australia’s decision should not alarm us. It should prompt us to think, seriously and urgently, about the kind of digital childhood we are allowing to unfold in Tanzania.