The government’s announcement today of a ban on social media for under-16s doesn’t show it in a good light. The three-month consultation that preceded it was frankly a sideshow, the decision in principle having been taken much earlier; the announcement was clearly rushed out precipitately with one eye on the Makerfield by-election; and there is something very rum about the choice to target X, Youtube and Reddit but to leave the young free to drink their fill from centrist dads’ hangout Bluesky (which, incidentally, has its own darker corners: see for example here).

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It is also a bad idea. The responsibility for supervising what children read and see should lie squarely with parents, who after all can dictate the internet setup in their homes and choose which, if any, smartphones to give their offspring. The government could have subtly reinforced this idea, for instance by requiring that all phones and routers sold have parental controls set to ‘on’ by default, only changeable by the account holder. The idea that this is something for the state and its none-too-subtle mega-agency Ofcom sends an........

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