Chris Stokel-Walker

Banning and blocking doesn't tackle those problems at all.

All it does, in fact, is get rid of the problem and sweep it under the carpet.

It kind of absolves the companies in question of the responsibility to try and fix the issues that have been caused.

There's also just the fact that if you ban something,

you are losing out on a key part of growing up these days.

We transact our lives digitally.

It is important that people learn the rules of the road online.

And ultimately, yes, also important that sometimes they make mistakes.

But then there's also just the impact that it has on their lives now.

And we cannot overlook the fact that young people's lives currently are not fantastic, right?

If you are, let's say, 18 now, you were born into...

the immediate aftermath of a financial crisis.

You have grown up under austerity.

As you were starting to get to your GCSEs, your A-levels, or whatever it is, you were hit by the COVID pandemic, which upended your education.

And then you graduate into a job market where suddenly AI is sweeping everything in front of you, and you're told that actually there might not be a job for you in the future.

Is it any wonder that young people are upset about what they're doing?

If you take away the ability to interact with one another on social media,

you lose the ability for them to connect, to find their identity and to find their tribes.

It's worth doing something.

It's not worth doing something that's imperfect because as soon as a ban is put in place, that becomes the default.