Are We Helping Or Harming By Keeping Her Off Social Media?

I (28F) have been in my stepdaughters’ lives for several years now. My spouse (31NB) and their bio mom share 50/50 custody, week on/week off. The girls are 10 and 12.

Our 10-year-old is generally well-adjusted and follows our house rules, including internet guidelines (at least while she’s with us). The bigger concerns are with our 12-year-old. She has ADHD and ODD, and impulse control is a major struggle for her. Especially in building relationships, as she is desperately seeking attention, more specifically from her mom in her own words. I only say that because, as things have progressed in the last few months, wanting attention is a growing theme, so we make the effort to do things with her and do the things she likes to do with her. When we have hard discussions with her about her poor behaviors, she often throws issues she has with mom at mom's on us. We remind her that, unfortunately, we cannot control what happens during mom's time, we can only adjust the things on our time.

Over the past two years, she’s been caught forming inappropriate relationships with strangers online at least twice. We addressed it immediately and thought she understood the seriousness. The first time involved Snapchatting a "21-year-old" man. Whether or not it was a real account or fake, we still discussed the dangers of the internet, stranger danger, and the account was blocked.

The second one was a 12-year-old boy from in another state on Roblox. When she was caught, her mom, my spouse (her dad), and I sat down with her again and re-explained the same things. It was more believable this time that it was an actual 12-year-old boy, at least, but both parents were on board with "No Boyfriends". Well, 12yo didn't like that. She shut down and stormed off. While the other two discussed the no boyfriend aspect, it kind of dinged to me that we can't stop her from doing it. The more we say "No", the further she'll go to do it and hide it. I expressed this with them both, and after some discussion, they seemed to understand where I was coming from. We reproached 12yo that she could continue with this boyfriend, but under rules and heavy monitoring, given the trust she had lost from repeated secretive behaviors. She was much more responsive and understanding with that. Spoiler alert: this internet romance did not last

A few months ago, we agreed to let her have a cellphone with full transparency that it would be monitored and restricted for safety. One of the rules was that the phone would not go to her mom’s house, her mom would need to provide her own communication there. I know that sounds bad, but the girls have a horrible tendency to lose or break things there, and we just didn't want to run the risk. Things were working out until Winter Break. A lot of things happened, a lot of things changed between the beginning of the school year and even up to current times, but winter break is when the Snapchat incident (and other concerning messages) happened.

Without getting too detailed, she admitted that over winter break, she had an active Snapchat on her mom’s phone and had sent inappropriate photos in a group chat with boys from school, along with messages about sneaking out. We dealt with this swiftly, explained to her why she shouldn't do that, and encouraged her to have more respect for herself and her body. Not in the shaming type of way, but about bodily autonomy and listening to your body when it has yucky feelings about situations.

This was all at bio mom's house, off of a phone that bio mom provides. It's a WiFi-only phone, no data, same as what her sister has there (her sister does not have or need a phone at our house, at least, in our opinion). We also found out that we are blocked on that phone, and she has been discouraged from contacting us during her mom's time. After that, my spouse decided she would keep her phone full-time so she could contact us whenever needed and hopefully discourage her from accessing the internet by other means so we could keep an eye on what she was up to. I wasn’t fully on board with that decision, but it happened. Her mom was informed of our phone rules and made minimal effort to align, but did agree, and we proceeded.

My spouse is now firmly in the “no social media at all” camp, which I understand, given what’s happened and how serious it was. Bio mom, on the other hand, seems far more permissive and disengaged when it comes to monitoring. I am fully on board with actions having consequences, as well. We are no strangers to shutting down the phone or taking it away when needed.

But here's where I struggle.

She already has a hard time socially and feels like an outcast at school. We constantly hear, “But everyone else has (insert social media platform).” In today’s world, so much social interaction happens online. Part of me feels like completely sheltering her may actually prevent her from learning how to use the internet safely and responsibly, especially as she gets older. I’m not advocating for zero boundaries. I absolutely believe in monitoring, restrictions, and consequences given her past. But, I’m wondering whether a structured, gradual introduction to certain platforms (with parental controls and oversight) might be healthier long-term than an outright ban that only applies 50% of the time.

Am I overstepping here? Am I crazy for this thought process? I've learned about the Snapchat parental controls, the Instagram, I think Facebook has parental controls, Tiktok has controls, I don't even know what else is out there that people are using regularly. And I'm not saying give it to her all right away, but that she could earn these things. A month of good behavior or grades, and then we set up an account for her to use safely. A short-term, achievable goal with a desirable reward to keep her motivated to do better. That's just my thought process on this. Am I in the wrong mindset?

Update to add:
Just want to add some clarity here, it may make things more complicated but again, it begs my question of if I'm thinking in the right direction or not. In regard to her social life, she is involved in sports, she plays sports all year round. She's super into crafting and we do that together. However, she's not really into makeup or the "other things girls in her school are into". She's also socially outcasted herself due to behavior issues in school. Her ODD has caused her to have more than one physically violent episode during the school day towards her peers, teachers, adults, and even the principal. The school has truly been amazing and we work very closely with them on her extensive IEP. She also attends individual therapy, school counseling, and a group therapy setting, as well. But we really struggle there as she refuses to work with and talk to any of the counselors and therapists we find for her. Ultimately, she expresses that sh wants to be a "normal" kid, and unfortunately, she's not just your average kid.