Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1545479
7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 21 JUNE 2026 ANALYSIS social media. Can it actually be done? technologists, lawyers and politicians whether it can be done and a company might decide a market of half a million is not worth the cost of adapting. "A platform may ignore a mar- ket of half a million people, but it cannot ignore a union of 450 million," he says. Malta could manage it over a few years, he believes, but only by leaning on its identity infrastructure and the EU framework. Antonio Ghio, a technolo- gy lawyer and president of the Malta IT Law Association, reaches the same conclusion from the legal side. The law always lags technology, he ar- gues, and there is little sense in a restriction that a capable teenager can beat in minutes with a proxy or a VPN. He lik- ens it to the ban on selling cig- arettes to minors, which never entirely stopped a child from getting hold of a packet. A ban that cannot be en- forced, he warns, risks becom- ing a gesture, "almost entering into the realm of politics". Like Dingli, he sees little point in going it alone when the Digital Services Act already binds the largest platforms to operate in Europe. Brussels is already moving that way. This week, Maltese Commissioner Glen Micallef told the European Parliament the EU's age-verification blue- print is complete, with access due by the end of 2026, and that the commission has prelimi- narily found Meta in breach of the DSA. The legal questions Ghio is also unpersuaded by the free-expression objection where children are concerned. No fundamental right is abso- lute, he argues, "not even the right to life", and rights must be balanced against one anoth- er. Keeping a child off a plat- form, he says, is no more a free- speech breach than barring one too young to drive. The same logic covers da- ta protection. Being asked to prove your age is not in itself a breach of privacy, he says, com- paring it to a bouncer obliged to check ID at a club door. The catch, again, is enforcement. A club is a physical door, an on- line account is not. The government's case Labour MP Rebecca Buttigieg, who as parliamentary secretary in the last legislature piloted the reform, had set out why Malta should act when kicking off the consultation process. The state has a moral duty to protect children online as it does in physical spaces, she had argued. "Malta sets age limits for driving, alcohol, gambling and marriage, so treating the digital sphere as unregulated is inconsistent." She had said the current lim- its are hollow. The 13-year minimum age is "largely sym- bolic", with many children on- line being younger. She ques- tioned if 13 "still makes sense" and warned that "laws that ex- ist only on paper" do little to protect children. But she also made the case for education that "empowers children rather than isolating them". The psychologist agrees that a ban cannot be the whole an- swer. Donatella Agius argues a ban may shield children at a vulnerable stage, but if they reach 16 with no digital litera- cy or safety skills, it only post- pones the problem. The push to act now Not everyone thinks the dif- ficulty is a reason to wait. On 19 June, Momentum urged the government to act at once on an under-16 ban rather than wait for the platforms to re- form. "Waiting on social media platforms to voluntarily protect our children is a lost cause," Momentum general-secretary Mark Camilleri Gambin says. His own December proposal would have phones carry a par- ent-set "minor flag" that plat- forms would read as a yes-or- no, though that would require Apple and Google to open up their systems, which he accepts is the longer game. For now, he argues, Malta need not wait— third-party tools that pass plat- forms only a yes or no already exist, such as Yoti, used by In- stagram, and Persona, used by Roblox. "With a law in place, the platforms will have to com- ply or face fines." Where this leaves Malta Despite disagreements on enforcement, those aiming to implement a ban recognise technology can raise but not seal barriers, and a national law is weak against multinational companies. The real challenge isn't wheth- er Malta can ban children from social media but whether it can develop a system that increases the cost to bypassing it, based on its identity system and the EU framework. After a year, that part remains unformed. The promise dates to October 2025, when Robert Abela said Malta would model social media age regulations on Australia's, which became the first country to ban under-16s. Britain plans to follow in early 2027, with Canada, Brazil and several EU states drawing up their own limits The real challenge isn't whether Malta can ban children from social media but whether it can develop a system that increases the cost to bypassing it, based on its identity system and the EU framework. After a year, that part remains unformed