In the shadowed halls of Westminster, where the Magna Carta once enshrined liberties, Prime Minister Keir Starmer now decrees social media barred to all under sixteen.
A measure draped in protective paternalism, yet quietly authoritarian in its distrust of the ungoverned mind.
One must note the deeper irony: in an era of boundless information, governments increasingly favor curation by fiat over the harder labor of cultivating critical faculties. Banning platforms may reduce algorithmic harms, but it also risks producing shielded minds unprepared for the complexities of the digital age.
True statesmanship does not erect walls of fear; it forges citizens resilient enough to navigate truth and deception alike.
Let the youth inherit the forum, not its exile. The test of governance is not how fiercely it censors, but how boldly it prepares.
Nigeria tried this script in 2021.
We learned: bans don’t raise better citizens.
Digital literacy does.