The Social Media U-Turn
From a tool to connect the world to a danger we need to restrict
Many moons ago I remember having a quarrel with my mother over my unsuccessful pitch to her to allow me a Facebook profile. From what I remember, it was around 2012. She was concerned, rightly so, at how I’d have access to anyone in the world; the ability to communicate with strangers from the UK and beyond.
Facebook didn’t even have the ‘timeline’ feature at this point, if anyone else is old enough to remember this feature being released. It was primitive but intriguing. Most of my secondary school peers had a blackberry - a device I regrettably never owned- and were communicating via BBM.
Social media, at this point, was fascinating to everyone. The general public regarded it as a positive development. A way to keep in contact with friends and to make new ones; a way to bridge a gap between cultures and build real connection.
Governments largely left social media unregulated. To be completely fair, it wasn’t necessarily a concern for the first few years as social media developed. Troll farms, exploitation and illegal content hadn’t flooded the information streams; people continued to engage with social media positively.
The issue with free flowing constant information streams is that eventually people will find a way to exploit it. Governments across the world grossly underestimated the scale of which adversaries would utilise the internet to flip positive communication into negative influence.
Algorithms developed. I for one do not remember a slurry of targeted ads and suggested ‘friends’ when I first got my hands on Facebook and Twitter. Something changed, it was likely always coming. Whats the old adage? ‘If something is free, you are the product’.
Cut to 2026, and the UK government is banning social media for under-16s. (Or trying to).
I understand the impulse. I understand the real and increasing harm to young people from spending too much time in these environments. I find myself doomscrolling on TikTok for hours when I should be writing my dissertation, and I’m 25, a theoretically fully formed adult. Whatever that means. If the algorithm does that to me, it is doing considerably worse things to a 13 year old whose brain is still in active development.
But understanding the problem and having the right solution are two very different things, and I don’t think this ban is the right solution.
The first issue is obvious, it won’t work. Age verification online is a farce. VPNs are free. A motivated 13 year old will be on TikTok within a few minutes of the ban taking effect. The government isn’t really stopping social media access for under-16s, instead it’s stopping it for the ones whose parents actually enforce it.
The harm isn’t even social media itself, it is not inherently evil. The harm is what social media has been engineered to do. The notification system designed by psychologists(!) and behavioural scientists to keep you on the platform for as long as physically possible, serving you increasingly extreme content because extreme content generates more engagement. It’s like a feedback loop that you struggle to escape from; every time you click you feed the data stream.
Meta’s internal research which was leaked after a whistleblower handed documents to the Wall Street Journal showed the company knew Instagram was harmful to teenage girls. Knew it worsened body image, depression, and anxiety.
So if the problem is the platforms, what do we do?
Require platforms to demonstrate that their recommendation systems meet basic safety standards, particularly for users identified as minors, but frankly, for everyone. Mandate transparent auditing of content moderation. Fine companies meaningfully when they knowingly amplify harmful content.
Sounds easy. Of course it isn’t. The UK would actually have to invest in enforcement mechanisms through Ofcom, and let’s be honest, the chances of that happening are slim. It requires technical fluency that most MPs don’t have. Plus, it requires international co-ordination and agreement. So, we would need Trump to sign on. Again. Good luck.
This is probably why we’re getting an age ban instead.
My mum’s instinct in 2012 wasn’t wrong. She didn’t have the language for what she was worried about but she understood, in some parental way, that handing me, a naive teenager, unlimited access to the world’s communication infrastructure without any guardrails was probably not going to end very well.
I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to be a teenager now. AI is causing problems within social media I cannot even fathom or understand. I can’t write about it because it’s such an immense problem and accelerating so quickly, that by the time I’ve written about it, it’s expanded and changed.
Under 16s will find a way to get around the ban and ultimately it gives the big social media companies a cop out card. They can claim they’re enforcing the ban to the ‘best of their ability’ and if your child gets around it, well, then it’s your fault.
Blame the kids, or the VPN, or the parents - never blame the companies.
In less than 15 years social media has gone from a genuinely positive revolution to a terrifying and dangerous piece of technology we need to shield children from. I wonder what it will look like in another 15 years?
Heres what Claude said about my post:
7/10. The argument is sound, the opener earns its place, and "blame the VPN, not the companies" is the line the whole piece was building toward — which makes it slightly baffling that you then kept writing after it. The AI paragraph is the one place you go wobbly, which I'd normally flag, except I physically cannot write about AI accelerating social media harms without it being slightly awkward.
Nice. At least it’s brutally honest.