Well, after much haggling there is actually going to be a social media ban for under 16s, alongside social media curfews for those aged 16 and 17. Luckily for me, it won’t be introduced until Spring next year—by which time I will be over 18. But this social media ban still affects all of us, and spells the end of a free internet.

A social media ban seems good, and well meaning – protecting vulnerable children from the risks the being online can pose—but a well meaning policy does not necessarily mean good policy. For many, social media can help provide a lifeline, a way to connect with friends, experience a world they may not otherwise experience.

Picture a 15 year old, single parent household, caring for their severely disabled brother — perhaps me of a few years ago. The answer to connection cannot simply go out with your friends in real life. For many teenagers, they can’t access a ‘normal’ life, whether that be due to caring locations, or living in a rural area, or being disabled.

But social media allows for this connection — a connection that simply isn’t possible otherwise. We are living in a more polarised world, people don’t always get along, but social media brings the world together. We can see what life is like elsewhere, part of a formation of who we are as a person. There is a lot of focus on the harms of social media — rightly so – but not enough focus on the benefits.

Then we are brought onto the issue of privacy. Many of us protested against the online safety act – requiring us to hand over our biometrics or ID to access certain websites deemed for adults. Now, imagine the same, but much further reaching. Handing over your ID to a shady private company to access twitter, Instagram, Snapchat. These ID companies have already been proven to take a haphazard approach to data privacy. Services like Discord saw user ID and biometrics leaked due to hackers. Biometrics recognition also doesn’t work — aged 16, as a test on Substack, I decided to squint into the camera — and it was happy that I was over 18. Now, I don’t think there is that much explicit content in Lewis Goodall’s comment section, but that could have been any other website. And then there’s the issue of VPNs – allowing you to get around any of these restrictions with relative ease. And the hope of anonymity online? Gone.

Throughout this year we have had the wrong stance on a social media ban. I commend half our policy – that would actually help to make social media safer for under 16s – but condemn the age rating system. This was simply a sneaky way of supporting a social media ban, while making it appear liberal. It had the appearance of liberalism, but behind it was not. It was essentially a blanket ban in the way we see now – we wanted the default age for social media use to be 16 – essentially what is now being proposed. We even proposed banning twitter for those under 18.

This was simply a reactionary policy, designed to criticise the Conservative policy, while not actually staying true to our liberal values. We said we opposed a blanket ban – but continued to vote for it multiple times in both the Commons and the Lords. We claimed they were film style age ratings – but you don’t need to upload your ID to a dodgy website to access The Crown (other television shows are available.)

In short – we need a policy on social media that reflects our liberal values, so that we can once again become the party of civil liberties – not the party that accepts, and actively campaigns for every nanny-statist ban that comes up. We used to gain votes for our strong civil liberties stance – now we are losing ground to the populism of parties like Reform. We are, at heart, a liberal party – we need to start acting like one.

* Cian Tynan is a party member from County Durham. He can be found on twitter (X) at Patrickt08.