A high profile 2028 presidential hopeful wants America to ban social media for children under 16, warning that platforms such as Tiktok and Facebook are “too powerful and too addictive.”
As Australia became the world’s first country to impose such a policy on Tuesday, Rahm Emanuel—a former ambassador, White House chief of staff, and Chicago mayor—called for the U.S. to “step up its game” and follow suit.
“When it comes to our adolescents, it’s either going to be adults or the algorithms that raise our kids. No child under the age of 16 should have access to social media,” he said as he made the pitch, ironically, on social media.
“TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and others are too powerful, too addictive, too alluring and too often target our young kids. Parents can not fight big tech alone.”
Emanuel’s ambitious push comes as countries take note of Australia’s controversial ban, which will result in millions of children losing access to their accounts on 10 chosen platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, and YouTube.
As part of the policy, social media companies were expected to take “reasonable” steps to remove accounts held by users under 16 years of age, and prevent them from registering new ones. Companies that don’t comply risk fines of up to $49.5 million (about US$32 million).
But while some parents have welcomed the ban as a way to manage social media exposure and protect children from bullying, harmful content or online predators, others warn it could infringe on children’s sense of social inclusion or question how the ban might be enforced.
“If there are less restrictive options available to achieve the aim of protecting children from harm, they should be preferred over a blanket ban,” said the Australian Human Rights Commission in a statement.
Elon Musk, owner of X, has also been critical of the new laws introduced by Australia’s centre-left government.
“Seems like a backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians,” Musk said in a reply to a post that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese put out last year when he first flagged the changes.
But Emanuel, who is mulling a presidential run in 2028, likened a social media ban to the steps he had taken as mayor to curb youth smoking by raising the minimum age to buy tobacco, or the compliance around drinking and driving.
“When it came to restricting tobacco from our kids, we’ve seen progress; when it came to the designated driver, we’ve seen progress,” said the Democrat, who was a senior adviser to Bill Clinton and a chief of staff to Barack Obama.
“So today I’m calling for the United States to file suit – come up with his own plan to protect our children, help our parents, strengthen our families, and restrict all social media when it comes to access to kids and adolescents 16 and younger.”
At present, social media restrictions in the U.S. vary between states. Nebraska, for instance, passed a law requiring social media platforms to verify users’ ages and obtain parental consent. Florida bans teens under 14, while New York is seeking to restrict social media feeds with addictive content.
But Emanuel is not the only potential presidential candidate with an eye on reform.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz, for instance, who insiders believe is positioning himself for another run in 2028, introduced a bill earlier this year that would ban children under 13 from online platforms and prevent social media companies from feeding algorithmically-boosted content to users under the age of 17.
In California, Governor Gavin Newsom, who is also widely tipped to be a Democratic contender in 2028, has signed a bill requiring social media platforms to display health warning labels to minors and require apps to check users’ ages.
“The time for debate and discussion is over,” Emanuel said.
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