Social media ban folly
Plus: wealth inequality and the alternative Covid inquiry
In today’s newsletter:
Social media bans
OFGEM propaganda
The student loan trap
“If any other product on the market had killed one child, we would remove it immediately. We must stop looking for excuses & ban social media for u16s” – Laura Trott, Shadow Education Secretary 24/02/26.
Or, as Lady Thatcher might say
“No, no, no” 30/10/90.
In 1775, the novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe - about a young man overwhelmed by unrequited love, was banned in Leipzig, Italy, and Denmark. This, after an alleged outbreak of Werther fever and copycat suicides by young men imitating this later day Romeo who didn’t get his Juliet. Books are dangerous, they reasoned, ban books.
In the 2010s elements of the ‘woke’ left exploited the mental health and death of teenagers in a small number of extreme cases, to demand youth access to puberty blockers and transition surgery, while lobbying for self-id. They called it a crisis, leveraged celebrities, wheeled grieving parents into studios, conflated correlation with causation, and tried to shut down dissent. You agreed, or you ‘wanted children to die’.
They were opposed, in my view courageously, by some of the same people who this week used similar tactics to demand the Government immediately shutter the Internet for youth. No need for any consultation, no need to think about it. You agree or you want children to die. The authoritarian left tendency currently out of favour in the governing Labour party can’t believe their luck. Watch that Overton window fly by as we career down the road to digital serfdom.
This, very clearly, despite explicit claims to the contrary, is a moral panic. While there is no doubt digital technologies and social media can be used in ways that cause harm, particularly by vulnerable people with multiple and complex issues, or by malefactors with malicious intent, this is a case for three things.
First, letting parents be parents to mitigate those risks. A generally popular position amongst conservatives, especially the ones who don’t much like libertarians. Common tools exist to enable parental controls, deployed then sensitive to the needs of the child, by the person who knows them best. For those unaware, it is the job of third sector campaigns to inform them, not the state. All such problems have solutions and it is infantilising nonsense to claim parents “are being overwhelmed”.
Second prosecute criminals. It is already an offence to encourage others to commit suicide (1961) or harm themselves (2023), with the age of the victim being an aggravating factor in sentencing. Removing the liberties of the victims of crime to address crime is a world of curfews and tutting about the length of skirts.
Third for policymakers to consider other measures cautiously. The precautionary principle (when we don’t know, assess and mitigate harms) is being invoked incautiously and incorrectly as a ‘zero harm’ principle (when we don’t know ban it). For which offering the test as ‘if just one child’ illustrates the point. Taken seriously, this would require a future administration to ban bicycles, ponies, sport, lego bricks, play equipment, and leaving the house. It would require digital ID or age verification checks for everything. Papers please comrades.
Clearly that latter point is not intended (I hope) and were anyone to make the case the politicians would surely highlight that these risky activities can be mitigated by sensible measures. They would claim they have positive benefits as well, which in fact, outweigh the risks. They might go further and say it was crazy to deny children access to such activities where they can learn to avoid harms, build social skills, and develop talents that may define them as adults, and be of benefit to the nation. They might invoke the same books worrying about digital anxiety that simultaneously and hypocritically make case for ‘free range kids’. They might then see all these things can also apply to social media use.
They might, in a rare moment of self-awareness, review the educational and mental health impacts the last time kids were banned from leaving their homes during lockdown, and think, ‘you know maybe there are unintended and worse consequences from prioritising harm reduction’. They may think ‘why don’t we wait and see what happens in Australia’ where kids are already evading the ‘fascist mum’-state with virtual private networks (VPNs) and no one can work out what does and doesn’t qualify as a dangerous app. They might think maybe it was a bad idea to introduce legislation in 2023 that forced hamster forums to close lest anyone used them to speak mean words.
Or the official Opposition can go into the next election with their ‘New Deal for Young People’ widely and correctly interpreted as ‘if you thought we hated you last time, with our triple lock, nimbyism and graduate taxes, you ain’t seen nothing yet’. Good luck with that, as they say in the chat rooms.
Andy Mayer
Chief Operating Officer
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IEA Podcast: Director of Communications Callum Price is joined by Director General David Frost and Energy Analyst and COO Andy Mayer to discuss the latest Reform speech, energy price caps and the social media ban for u16s - IEA YouTube
OFGEM pushing ‘propaganda, not regulation’ over energy price cap
Responding to the latest energy price cap announcement from OFGEM, Andy Mayer, Energy Analyst at the Institute of Economic Affairs said:
“While any reduction in bills is welcome, OFGEM’s political statements around the changes are both negligent of their duty to protect consumers and a disgrace for an independent regulator.
“The bulk of the £200 (10%) saving from a year ago is not real. It’s a transfer of bad climate policy costs from bills to taxes. Hiding the problem, not solving it.
“This means future taxpayers, your children, are now subsidising old wind farms and failed heat pump promotion campaigns, rather than stopping the waste.
“The rest relates to lower wholesale prices which in turn have benefitted from a fall in the regional price of natural gas.
“Which OFGEM do not celebrate, rather they claim absurdly that ongoing exposure to gas (which almost always provides cheaper power than the alternatives before carbon taxes), is the greater risk.
“They further bury in the notes the fact that the fall would have been greater were it not for £66 being added to bills by raising network (or grid) costs, which almost entirely relates to the clean power plan.
“This is propaganda not regulation.
“While the government is may wish to push whatever net zero nonsense helps them sleep at night, OFGEM exists to serve the public, which requires a drier analysis and transparency on the vast and growing bill for this ideological crusade.”
News and Views
Why Net Zero Is Failing Britain, Lord Frost, Kathryn Porter, and Andy Mayer discuss why just stopping oil isn’t an option, IEA YouTube
Brexit betrayed: minister insists EU alignment is ‘where the magic happens’, Lord Frost spoke about the EU realignment, The Daily Express
Lord Frost, the former Brexit negotiator, said: "Each time Labour ministers go to Brussels they signal another negotiating concession. It's clear they are now preparing to breach their manifesto quite blatantly by joining one aspect after another of the EU's single market. No one voted for this. Labour should focus on rebuilding the economy from the disasters they are causing rather than hoping the EU will somehow run to their rescue."
The Rising Cost of Health Benefits, Chris Snowdon broke down the problems with surging PIP claims on Panorama
Asking the questions the experts didn’t – or wouldn’t, Chris Snowdon took part in the Alternative Covid Inquiry, The Spectator
Hernando de Soto shows why property makes wealth, Kristian Niemietz writes about interim prime minister of Peru, CapX
“for the first time ever, Latin America now came within a whisker of having two heads of government that you could reasonably describe as Hayekian classical liberals: Javier Milei and Hernando de Soto.”
Net Zero costs could exceed £9trillion as critics fume: ‘It was sold to the public on fantasy numbers!’, our Cost of Net Zero report covered in GB News
Critics say the Government has not been upfront about the long‑term implications with the country.
Gross expenditure could surpass £7.6trillion, rising above £9trillion once wider carbon‑related costs are included.
The Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) briefing paper, authored by energy analyst David Turver, argues public bodies have relied on what he describes as “fantasy assumptions” that significantly understate the scale of spending required.
The Student Loan Trap, Callum Price dissects the fundamental problems with the student loan system, and how to fix them, IEA YouTube
All they can do is say, give us more money, Chris Snowdon on the NHS funding problem, GB News