There is something uniquely depressing about being governed by people who appear to understand neither technology nor teenagers.
Sir Keir Starmer has announced that under-16s will be banned from social media. Ministers are talking about age verification, facial scanning, digital identification and restrictions that make even Australia’s failed experiment look modest.
The trouble is that Britain’s teenagers are not stupid.
In fact, many of them are considerably more technologically capable than the politicians trying to regulate them.
Within hours of these proposals being announced, countless 14 and 15-year-olds across Britain were probably already swapping tips on how to get around them. VPNs, alternative accounts, borrowed credentials, workarounds and new platforms. Young people have always found ways around rules imposed by adults who don’t understand the technology they are trying to control.
Australia has already demonstrated the problem. Restrict access and teenagers simply migrate elsewhere or find ways around the barriers.
The people who will comply are the law-abiding. The determined will find a workaround.
So what exactly is this policy intended to achieve?
If the Government is genuinely concerned about children accessing pornography, then target pornography. If ministers are worried about illegal content, then tackle illegal content.
But instead we have a proposal that sweeps up YouTube, one of the most widely used educational resources in human history.
Has nobody in Whitehall noticed that millions of teenagers use YouTube to revise for GCSEs and A-levels?
Has nobody realised that teenagers use Snapchat to let friends know they got home safely?
Has nobody considered that for many young people, particularly in rural communities with limited public transport, social media is how friendships are maintained in the first place?
The irony is extraordinary.
Labour wants to give 16-year-olds the vote. Apparently they are mature enough to help choose the Government of the United Kingdom, but not mature enough to decide whether to watch a GCSE maths tutorial on YouTube or message their friends on social media.
You cannot simultaneously tell teenagers they are responsible enough to help run the country and too irresponsible to use the internet.
The position is absurd.
What is perhaps most frustrating is the growing tendency to outsource parenting to the state.
Every time this subject comes up, somebody says: “But it’s so hard to police what children are doing online.”
Of course it is.
Parenting is hard.
Always has been.
It is not the Government’s job to raise children. It is the job of parents to set boundaries, impose screen limits, confiscate phones when necessary and decide what is appropriate for their own family.
The state cannot replace parental responsibility. Nor should it try.
The deeper concern is what comes next. Because while this policy is being sold as a child protection measure, its practical effect may be something much broader.
To prevent children accessing social media, platforms will need to know who is and isn’t an adult. That means age verification. That means identification. That means millions of ordinary adults being asked to prove who they are before accessing services that they have used freely for years.
A society where adults must routinely present digital credentials to participate online is a very different society from the one we grew up in.
Perhaps ministers can explain exactly where this ends. Perhaps they can explain why Bluesky appears exempt while X, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are targeted. Perhaps they can explain how over 100,000 consultation responses were fully considered in such a short period.
Most importantly, perhaps they can explain why yet another major change affecting privacy, freedom of communication and daily life is being pushed forward through powers that receive limited parliamentary scrutiny.
Protect children? Absolutely. Target pornography? Certainly. Enforce the law against criminals? Without hesitation.
But don’t pretend that banning teenagers from mainstream social media is a serious solution. It isn’t.
It is a policy designed by adults who do not understand the problem, aimed at young people who understand the technology far better than they do.
And that is why it won’t work.
