We have this issue massively in Australia too - literally almost 100% of the push to implement a social media ban (where ‘social media’ is anything that an unelected bureaucrat called the ‘eSafety commissioner’ feels like, which, for example, wasn’t going to include YouTube until they changed their mind) came from a single Murdoch newspaper campaign. It just wasn’t a thing anybody else was talking about, and then suddenly it was apparently the most important thing the federal Government could be doing that apparently had to be rushed through in about two weeks with almost no oversight (normally here it can take years to get reform that normal people have been long calling for into Parliament) - honestly it was absolutely bizarre.

I have no hesitation saying that the newspaper that pushed it doesn’t give a single damn about the kids - they have a serious hatred of Meta in particular but also Google. The whole thing was concern trolling because they were angry that they are going to get cut off from the last shakedown they lobbied for (called the media bargaining code).