India, Aug. 23 -- Many countries are rushing to ban social media for children and young people, including Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, and most recently France and the UK, where social media curfews for under-18s have been confirmed this month. It seems tides are turning after long delays and inaction towards online harms on social media, which have been known for a long time.

Despite new policies being introduced, there are deeper questions on accountability, inequalities, and power dynamics which remain unresolved by social media bans.

Evidence has shown that social media, and same platforms that dominate the development of AI, have been under-regulated despite spreading harms including discrimination, misinformation, viole...