If I was the government I would set up a social media use authorization portal and demand social media companies with over 1k monthly active users require their

If I was the government I would set up a social media use authorization portal and demand social media companies with over 1k monthly active users require their users to take a randomly generated challenge code, take it to the government portal and have it signed and submit the signed challenge in order to register (this would be a smooth UX with popup taking you to the gov portal and back), the gov portal would not ask for authentication, just a clear picture of your id. It will not allow vpns and such and if you presented fake id the that would be a crime. Now where my policy differs is that I would not prevent kids from using social media, they can still show a school id and their school or parent would need to approve and taken on that legal obligation of presenting valid id. But the critical part is that kids 14-17 and 10-13 each would have their own social media. They can join facebook for example but facebook has to prevent them from coming to contsct with adults and their content or things like adult news feeds and advertisments. Similarly advertisers would become legally liable if they advertise content that steers children to a harmful end. Social media companies must also prove that their algorithms are explicitly tuned to prevent addiction if minors to the platform and even enforce maximum legal usage hours (2h for 10-13 and 6h for 14-17).