Keir Starmer’s British government has been cursed with a long to-do list on which almost every bullet point is deeply unpopular. A ban on social media for teens, on the other hand, is uncomplicatedly supported by the public. The relief was discernible in the prime minister’s voice when he said it would “give children their childhood back.”
There are plenty of reasons to agree that social media is indeed making children unhappy and unsafe. But bans fueled by moral certainty and high purpose are the easy part. The unpleasant stuff comes later: enforcement, dealing with side-effects, restraining yourself from letting controls multiply across the internet.
