Why I’ve changed my mind about banning social media for teenagers

I used to be in favour of social media bans for teenagers. But government overreach has led me to become wary of allowing my local over-zealous PC Plod dictate what constitutes harmful online content

My recent UnHerd article explains why I once supported banning social media for teenagers because of the damage it can do to vulnerable young people. Many parents I meet, especially those with trans-identified children, share that concern. But the wider debate has raised a deeper question for me: Who watches the watchers? Who decides what is harmful and who gets to enforce it?

I’m not a banning person. At heart I’m a classical liberal* and would prefer to live in a society where as few things as possible are banned. That instinct makes me wary of handing more power to the state, even in the face of real harm. The question is no longer whether social media can damage young people, but who should have the authority to respond.

The normalisation of government control over our access to information feels increasingly troubling. I don’t really want state authorities deciding what is harmful and I’m uneasy about governmental policies shaping the narrative for the good of the people.

I sometimes wonder how far off the day is when a person loses their temper in an online argument that goes against government policy and suddenly cannot access their bank account as a consequence of their views. They might then be unable to drive to a friend’s house because their electric car has been disabled as part of the sanctions. Inevitably, the hot-tempered person will then be forced to see the light, apologise, and espouse the accepted narrative on trans issues or Covid or whatever the issue du jour is.

This might seem far-fetched, but so did what happened to the Canadian truckers. In early 2022, thousands of truckers and supporters formed a convoy to protest Covid mandates. The Canadian government responded by invoking emergency powers and freezing bank accounts linked to some participants and their donors.

What happens if something worse than the current trans phenomenon comes along? Yes, that really could happen. In this context, would you really want your children only having access to government-approved narratives?

We should be wary of solutions that place that power in the wrong hands. Once we accept that the state can decide what is harmful and restrict access accordingly, the boundary will not hold. It never does. The question is not whether power will be used, but how far it will reach and who it will reach next.

I wrote about the erosion of parental authority in my first book, Cotton Wool Kids, back in 2015. Even then, it was clear that parents were being steadily edged out of their rightful role as guardians and protectors of their children. I did not anticipate how quickly that erosion would accelerate. Eleven years on, I’ve seen parents repeatedly recast as bystanders, overridden by so-called experts and dismissed by teachers who have never heard of Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria yet still presume to know better than the parents of a trans-identified teenager.

If we are serious about protecting young people, we need to respect the right of parents to raise their children as they see fit. Of course, when parents are genuinely harmful, the authorities should intervene. Otherwise, they should be left to it. Families are idiosyncratic. We all have our own ways of doing things.

Disagreeing with your teenager is not abuse. Neither is it abuse to explain to your child that they were born in their own body, that there were no alternatives - you know this because you were there at the time - and that the name you gave them was chosen with love and it should not be cast aside lightly. Using sex-based pronouns for your child is the appropriate response of a loving parent. It is not abuse - it is parental guidance.

Parents must be given more authority, not less. Surrendering that authority to the state or to tech companies whose interests are not aligned with the wellbeing of children is a risk we should not take. Children should not be treated as autonomous digital citizens.

The question is not whether teenagers need limits. They do. The question is who sets them. If we get that wrong, no policy, however well intentioned, will protect the next generation.

You can read my piece in Unherd here: https://unherd.com/newsroom/why-i-no-longer-support-social-media-bans-for-teenagers/?edition=us

*Classical liberalism is associated with individual liberty, personal responsibility, and minimal state intervention, whereas a 21st-century liberal supports more active state intervention, particularly in welfare, regulation, and social justice.