DIGITAL BANS: safety or policing?

Proposed bans on social media over the harm it causes young ones raises the query: are we reverting to the Victorian era's rigid rules?

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A wave of proposed social media bans for young people has swept the globe recently, fuelled by mounting concern about the apparent harm the likes of TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat can cause to vulnerable minds.

Australia was the first to announce restrictions on people under 16 having a social media account. New Zealand may soon follow, and Denmark's prime minister recently declared her country would ban social media for under-15s, accusing mobile phones and social networks of “stealing our children’s childhood”.

The moves are part of a growing international trend and at first glance, these policies appear to be about protecting young people from mental health harm, explicit content and addictive design. But beneath the language of safety lies something else: a shift in cultural values.

The bans reflect a kind of moral turn, one that risks reviving conservative notions that predate the internet. Might we be entering a new Victorian era of the internet, where the digital lives of young people are reshaped not just by regulation but by a reassertion of moral control?

Policing moral decline

The Victorian era was marked by rigid social codes, modest dress and formal communication. Public behaviour was tightly regulated, and schools were seen as key sites for socialising children into gender and class hierarchies.