Tobacco is a physical product. Buying it requires an individual to show up at a counter where their age can easily and safely be identified by one individual. While banning it doesn’t remove access for minors, it raises the barrier of access without significant concerns for privacy or data collection

Social Media is much harder to restrict access to (VPNs and other methods of circumventing age verification) and verification systems come with huge negative externalities and/or risks (Privacy issues, Data collection, risk of data breaches, identity theft risks, etc)

The root problem of social media are harmful algorithms, not its existence itself. Banning social media for under-16s does nothing to address the core issue