Cllr Noah Khogali represents Strathearn on Perth and Kinross Council and is a political commentator with Young Voices UK.
Labour and the rest of those in Whitehall and Westminster fawning over the idea that they are the saviours of a generation are wrong about the best way to protect young people online.
Marking a major escalation in the government’s desire to intervene in the private lives of its citizens. Labour’s belief that “if we just legislate hard enough, if we just ban enough features, we can keep children perfectly safe” is a dangerous oversimplification that will do more harm than good. By prioritising blunt legislative instruments over practical education, the government is ignoring the complex realities of the digital age.
The evolution of this policy has been a masterclass in reactionary governance.
In the last few weeks, Labour explored banning under-sixteens from social media, only to then suggest it will merely be guidance, before finally pivoting to threats of imprisoning tech CEOs. This lack of a coherent strategy suggests that the primary objective is to be seen doing “something“—no matter how ill-conceived—rather than addressing the root causes of online risk. This panic-driven legislative environment serves only to create a false sense of security while leaving children vulnerable to the very predators the state claims to be thwarting.
It’s important to be clear that all of those engaged in this debate do want young people to be as safe as possible online. The digital world can be a scary environment, especially for those still learning about the reality of the world they are growing into. Unfortunately however, those in Parliament on both sides of the aisle seem to have bought into the “feel good” solution of banning things, rather than acknowledging the difficulty of this issue.
Just look at the absolute mess that has transpired in Australia under similar laws.
Australia’s ban has put young people in harm’s way. An overwhelming 78 per cent of Australian youths under sixteen continue to bypass restrictions to access prohibited social media apps, according to recent data from Pureprofile. Instead of a concerted effort to teach young people about how to be safe online, the Australian government has pushed young people’s internet usage into the shadows.And somehow, the UK Government has decided that Australia is a model they want to follow.
In a David vs Goliath battle, the blunt instrument of aggressive yet cumbersome state regulation will always lose to the agility of young people. They understand how the internet works, and that with a quick download of a VPN, can place their digital presence anywhere in the world, and avoid the authoritarian tendencies of whatever government happens to tax them that day. Kier Starmer seems to think that young teenagers will simply log off and go play outside. Instead, they will use VPNs and migrate away from heavily monitored, mainstream platforms. In Australia, 46 per cent of 13-to-15-year-olds actively admit to seeking out technical workarounds to bypass the state’s restrictions, and on the day the ban took effect, VPN connections to international servers in Australia surged by 170 per cent above the baseline.
If young people aren’t listening to their parents, they will not listen to Keir Starmer, or Andy Burnham.
Forcing young people into the digital shadows is actively putting them in danger. Almost a third of parents polled in Australia noted their children shifting to alternative or less regulated platforms.
One of those platforms is Discord, which operates largely via private, invite-only servers and encrypted communications, making it significantly harder for parents to monitor than a standard public feed. That opacity doesn’t make it inherently dangerous, and millions use it entirely safely, but it does mean the reporting mechanisms and safety nets that exist on mainstream platforms simply aren’t there. It’s important not to be hyperbolic, and these spaces are not inherently designed for or full of predators, but their opaque nature makes them the environments where unchecked bullying, algorithmic radicalisation, and grooming occur most easily.
Instead of defaulting to the populist, but demonstrably failing, impulse of a blanket ban, the Government must reassess how it empowers families. You cannot legislate bubble wrapped internet or outsource parenting to a civil servant in Whitehall. We do not ban children from walking near busy roads simply because traffic is dangerous and fast-moving. Instead, we build pavements, enforce speed limits, and most importantly, we teach them the Green Cross Code.
The same logic applies online.
Mandatory and genuinely helpful digital literacy embedded in PSHE from primary school upwards would give children the critical tools to recognise manipulation, predatory behaviour, and the mechanics of algorithmic influence before they encounter them unsupervised. Ofcom’s existing powers should be directed not at blanket age-gates which, as Australia has demonstrated, doesn’t work, but at requiring platforms to offer parents granular, accessible controls over their children’s accounts for parents to use, including content filters, contact restrictions, and activity visibility that parents actually understand and can use. The technology exists and the regulatory lever exists. What is missing is the political will to pursue the harder, less headline-friendly work of equipping families rather than replacing them.
The government’s role should not be to build flimsy digital fences, but to ensure parents are equipped with the technical literacy to enforce their own household rules, and that children are taught the critical resilience needed to navigate the modern world. A ban is an admission of defeat that infantilises the public, and education is the only sustainable way to protect them.
Cllr Noah Khogali represents Strathearn on Perth and Kinross Council and is a political commentator with Young Voices UK.
Labour and the rest of those in Whitehall and Westminster fawning over the idea that they are the saviours of a generation are wrong about the best way to protect young people online.
Marking a major escalation in the government’s desire to intervene in the private lives of its citizens. Labour’s belief that “if we just legislate hard enough, if we just ban enough features, we can keep children perfectly safe” is a dangerous oversimplification that will do more harm than good. By prioritising blunt legislative instruments over practical education, the government is ignoring the complex realities of the digital age.
The evolution of this policy has been a masterclass in reactionary governance.
In the last few weeks, Labour explored banning under-sixteens from social media, only to then suggest it will merely be guidance, before finally pivoting to threats of imprisoning tech CEOs. This lack of a coherent strategy suggests that the primary objective is to be seen doing “something“—no matter how ill-conceived—rather than addressing the root causes of online risk. This panic-driven legislative environment serves only to create a false sense of security while leaving children vulnerable to the very predators the state claims to be thwarting.
It’s important to be clear that all of those engaged in this debate do want young people to be as safe as possible online. The digital world can be a scary environment, especially for those still learning about the reality of the world they are growing into. Unfortunately however, those in Parliament on both sides of the aisle seem to have bought into the “feel good” solution of banning things, rather than acknowledging the difficulty of this issue.
Just look at the absolute mess that has transpired in Australia under similar laws.
Australia’s ban has put young people in harm’s way. An overwhelming 78 per cent of Australian youths under sixteen continue to bypass restrictions to access prohibited social media apps, according to recent data from Pureprofile. Instead of a concerted effort to teach young people about how to be safe online, the Australian government has pushed young people’s internet usage into the shadows.And somehow, the UK Government has decided that Australia is a model they want to follow.
In a David vs Goliath battle, the blunt instrument of aggressive yet cumbersome state regulation will always lose to the agility of young people. They understand how the internet works, and that with a quick download of a VPN, can place their digital presence anywhere in the world, and avoid the authoritarian tendencies of whatever government happens to tax them that day. Kier Starmer seems to think that young teenagers will simply log off and go play outside. Instead, they will use VPNs and migrate away from heavily monitored, mainstream platforms. In Australia, 46 per cent of 13-to-15-year-olds actively admit to seeking out technical workarounds to bypass the state’s restrictions, and on the day the ban took effect, VPN connections to international servers in Australia surged by 170 per cent above the baseline.
If young people aren’t listening to their parents, they will not listen to Keir Starmer, or Andy Burnham.
Forcing young people into the digital shadows is actively putting them in danger. Almost a third of parents polled in Australia noted their children shifting to alternative or less regulated platforms.
One of those platforms is Discord, which operates largely via private, invite-only servers and encrypted communications, making it significantly harder for parents to monitor than a standard public feed. That opacity doesn’t make it inherently dangerous, and millions use it entirely safely, but it does mean the reporting mechanisms and safety nets that exist on mainstream platforms simply aren’t there. It’s important not to be hyperbolic, and these spaces are not inherently designed for or full of predators, but their opaque nature makes them the environments where unchecked bullying, algorithmic radicalisation, and grooming occur most easily.
Instead of defaulting to the populist, but demonstrably failing, impulse of a blanket ban, the Government must reassess how it empowers families. You cannot legislate bubble wrapped internet or outsource parenting to a civil servant in Whitehall. We do not ban children from walking near busy roads simply because traffic is dangerous and fast-moving. Instead, we build pavements, enforce speed limits, and most importantly, we teach them the Green Cross Code.
The same logic applies online.
Mandatory and genuinely helpful digital literacy embedded in PSHE from primary school upwards would give children the critical tools to recognise manipulation, predatory behaviour, and the mechanics of algorithmic influence before they encounter them unsupervised. Ofcom’s existing powers should be directed not at blanket age-gates which, as Australia has demonstrated, doesn’t work, but at requiring platforms to offer parents granular, accessible controls over their children’s accounts for parents to use, including content filters, contact restrictions, and activity visibility that parents actually understand and can use. The technology exists and the regulatory lever exists. What is missing is the political will to pursue the harder, less headline-friendly work of equipping families rather than replacing them.
The government’s role should not be to build flimsy digital fences, but to ensure parents are equipped with the technical literacy to enforce their own household rules, and that children are taught the critical resilience needed to navigate the modern world. A ban is an admission of defeat that infantilises the public, and education is the only sustainable way to protect them.