Donald Trump is considering whether to follow the lead of other nations to enact a ban on social media for young Americans, the Daily Mail has learned.
Trump is ‘looking further’ into how children and teens can be protected from the dangers of social media, including potential restrictions.
A source familiar with the topic told the Daily Mail that the president has ‘heard from several people expressing deep concern over how social media is negatively impacting our young people from both sides of the aisle.’
And he’s now ‘looking further into’ imposing social media restrictions on minors after US allies have taken similar actions.
Australia and France have created regulatory bodies to shield kids from social media until they are in their mid-teens, and other western nations are following suit.
First Lady Melania Trump is a vocal advocate for cracking down on cyberbullying and the distribution of deepfake nudes and sexual content. As part of her Be Best initiative, the first lady advocated for online safety for children and positive social media use.
It’s unclear whether Melania has spoken with her husband about restricting social media use for children, and her office did not respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment regarding her feelings on the matter.
Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump in the latest episode of Pod Force One released Wednesday, confirmed the president has been ‘taking an interest’ in the effects of social media use on children.
‘I’m not much of one for regulating things, but I would be very happy with a little bit of regulation in this space, just personally as a parent,’ the Fox News host and former RNC co-chair told New York Post columnist Miranda Devine in a sit-down put out on Wednesday.
President Donald Trump is considering whether to follow the example of other nations imposing social media bans for children. First Lady Melania Trump has advocated for social media safety for minors and backed rules that would crackdown on cyberbullying and posting of deep fakes as revenge porn
Lara Trump said her father-in-law – President Donald Trump – is ‘taking an interest’ in social media’s impact on children and looking at how other countries regulate its use
Lara said that she spoke with the president about her concerns and that he welcomed the conversation about how children’s feel-good chemicals are ‘firing’ when they look at a screen.
‘And then you take the screen away, and those all go away,’ she recounted her talks with her father-in-law.
‘Well, how are they ever going to get back to that in just regular life without a screen? They almost don’t,’ Lara added.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment on whether the president is considering restricting social media use for children.
Despite Lara telling the NY Post that the president is receptive to her feelings that social media should be regulated for kids, Trump’s executive actions in his first and second terms have most-times focused on ending platforms’ ability to censor content and giving users more freedoms.
He is very openly anti-regulation.
This has sometimes put him at odds with allied nations like the UK or Australia, whose governments more often implement aggressive restrictions on content sharing.
Australia has some of the most restrictive regulations on social media usage for minors. In December, the country’s government implemented a ban for children under 16-years-old from having accounts on all major platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, X, YouTube and Twitch.
Platforms that violate the ban could face fines up to $49.5 million.
Some of Trump’s more recent executive orders regarding technology have focused on artificial intelligence. He signed in May the Take It Down Act, which was endorsed by Melania, and criminalizes the nonconsensual distribution of real and AI-generated sexual imagery.
Trump has floated during his second term a ban on Chinese-linked video sharing social media app TikTok. But he’s flip-flopped on that proposal.
In January 2025, he signed an EO delaying enforcement of a TikTok ban for 75 days, giving time for his team to review options and trying to put pressure on the company to disassociate from the CCP. He continued to delay the ban in June, September and again in December.
President Trump signed the Take It Down Act alongside First Lady Melania Trump on May 19, 2025. It criminalizes non-consensual publication of real or AI-generated sexual images
Lara says that her two children she shares with the president’s son Eric Trump do not have cell phones or tablets. Both of their kids are under 10-years-old
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Lara, who is married to Trump’s second son Eric, says they have a ‘no-screen policy’ at her home and that neither of her children have a cell phone or tablet.
The couple share two children, Luke, 8, and Carolina, 6.
She said her kids are ‘on nothing at all’ when it comes to social media and the internet.
‘That has been something that we’ve established,’ she explained. ‘And it frustrates me too, because I go out to dinner and I see all these kids at tables — and what are they doing?’
‘They’re just watching the screen. Eric and I, a long time ago, we’re like, ‘We’re not going to do that.’
She said her kids instead are playing with a football or drawing in a coloring book.
‘They talk to us, so that one day when they’re adults, imagine that, they’re going to have the ability to converse with people instead of look at a screen,’ Lara concluded.
Democrats and Republicans have introduced bills in recent years that would limit children’s access to social media platforms.
Most recently, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, along with a bipartisan delegation of senators proposed the Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA), which would ban children under 13 from using social media altogether and restrict content algorithm recommendations for users under 17.
