Keir Starmer has decided that the best way to protect teenagers from social media is to ban them from using it entirely. This is like solving obesity by outlawing forks. The announcement comes after years of hand-wringing about online safety, during which tech firms had “enough time” to police themselves — they did not.
The plan is admirably simple: under-16s get no TikTok, no Instagram, no X. Problem solved. Teenagers will now spend their free time doing something healthy, like spray-painting bus stops or discovering drugs, which at least have the decency to be illegal in a way that politicians understand.
Why implement graduated restrictions, age verification that actually works, or hold platforms accountable for algorithmic amplification of harmful content when you can just swing an axe? The government has chosen the legislative equivalent of unplugging the router when your kid discovers YouTube.
Australia did this first, because Australia always does things first — usually badly, then everyone copies it. The UK is following the formula: announce bold action, ignore that enforcement is impossible, let lawyers argue about it for three years, declare victory when nothing changes.
Tech firms are already preparing their compliance theatre. They’ll add an age gate that asks “Are you under 16?” Users will click “No.” Problem unsolved again. The real issue — that these platforms are engineered to be addictive and profitable specifically because they’re addictive — remains untouched, unexamined, and too complicated for a Monday morning announcement.
But hey, politicians get to claim they did something decisive. That’s what matters.