The UK Government's Social Media Ban For Under-16s - What Would Mark Fisher Think?

Image credit: Channel 4 News

 

 

I. 

 

The big news story of the day: the UK government has announced a social media ban for under-16s. It will be introduced in early 2027. 

 

Keeping children off social media is the best way to keep them safe online, said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, adding that he wants to give children back their childhoods. 

 

Hearing this made me smile, as I had just finished reading Mark Fisher explain how children know more about technology than parents, teachers, or politicians and their early encounter with cybernetic systems immunises them against much of the moral-metaphysical bullshit that the adult world still lives by and seeks to enforce. 

 

Children, says Fisher, "increasingly live in a Gothic Materialist chaosmos" [1] and, in many ways, they "occupy the frontier-zones of capitalism, operating as probe-heads in what, for adults, is the future" [2].

 

Indeed, it might be argued that the average thirteen-year-old has a better understanding of hyperreality than Starmer and his entire front bench put together. 

 

 

II.

 

Of course, I'm quoting Fisher writing back in the day when he was part of Nick Land's Cybernetic Culture Research Unit and it was common practice to think of children as probe-heads [têtes-chercheuses] rather than innocents in need of safeguarding.  

 

He may well have changed his tune after becoming a father and I don't pretend to know for certain what the late Mark Fisher's likely view of the UK government's under-16 social media ban would have been. 

 

However, while Fisher was deeply critical of smartphones - calling them the ultimate tools of capitalist distraction - one strongly suspects he would oppose a top-down state ban on social media and insist that the mental health crisis of young people - hedonic depression - is part of a wider problem than the use of TikTok and Instagram. 

 

What's more, Fisher also explicitly warned against the temptation to retreat from technological modernity. Simply trying to force a withdrawal treats the problem as a failure of young individuals and parents, rather than recognising that cyberspace in its present form has been designed to capture and commodify human desire. Ultimately a legal ban is a vain attempt to mandate a nostalgic, pre-digital childhood that no longer exists, instead of imagining (and attempting to build) a post-capitalist internet. 

 

Further - as many critics are already pointing out - to enforce an outright ban for under-16s would oblige social media platforms to adopt age-verification tools, including biometric facial scanning and ID uploads. Fisher would view this as a sinister expansion of the digital panopticon. In other words, instead of curbing the power of corporate tech giants, a ban forces citizens to hand over even more personal data simply to prove they are over sixteen years of age, reinforcing mechanisms of surveillance and control. 

 

And finally, for all the harm smartphones may cause, Fisher also recognised that social media is where modern communication, community, and political dissent happen. By completely shutting out under-16s from virtual public squares and denying them the chance to collectively express ideas and organise, the state effectively de-politicizes them and places them under state curfew. 

 

Again, as I say above, Fisher would most probably argue that the solution to algorithmic harm is not a retreat to a model of the past and banning children from the online world, but seizing the digital platforms from corporate tech monopolies - revolution is what is called for, not ill thought through bans.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Mark Fisher, Flatline Constructs: Gothic Materialism and Cybernetic Theory-Fiction (Zer0 Books, 2025), p. 222. 

 

[2] Ibid., p. 223. 

 

 

This post is a (slightly revised) extract from a forthcoming post on chapter four of Mark Fisher's Flatline Constructs (2025).    

 

 

Liz Truss and Boris Johnson: Say Hello, Wave Goodbye

 

Liz Truss promises to ride out the storm,

whilst Boris Johnson says he'll return to his plough. 

 

 

I. 

 

There was nothing new or interesting in Liz Truss's Downing Street speech as she began her tenure as British PM yesterday: it was the usual predictable bullshit from someone who doesn't seem to be aware that she has actually been a part of the UK government that has got us in the present mess [1].

 

It wasn't a virus that wrecked the economy - it was the profoundly stupid political response to such. Similarly, the energy crisis is not something that can simply be blamed on Russia [2]. And one might wonder why, if the British people are so full of courage and aspiring to national greatness, they repeatedly return to office such piss-poor and cowardly politicians?

 

Truss may want to ride out the storm, but some of us are rather hoping that it blows a gaping hole in the ideals, conventions, and fixed forms that we erect like a huge umbrella between ourselves and the forever surging chaos of existence.  

 

 

II. 

Of course, Truss wasn't the only one making a short speech yeserday in front of 10 Downing Street: the outgoing PM, Boris Johnson, also found time to offer us a few final thoughts. And, to be honest, I found what he had to say far more stimulating. 

 

Critics might say the speech only provided further proof of the fact that Johnson's an arrogant liar and narcissist, still in denial about his own spectacular fall from power, but at least he managed to squeeze in a reference to the Roman statesman and military leader Cincinnatus (c.519 - c. 430 BC), and I always appreciate signs of a Classical education. 

 

However, it's highly debatable whether Johnson's self-comparison with Cincinnatus holds good; for whilst the latter was renown for his civic virtue, modesty, and outstanding leadership; the former will probably be remembered for Partygate, golden wall paper and an obsession with net zero. 

 

That said, like Cincinnatus, one suspects that Johnson has little time for those he regards as plebs [3] and that he (not so) secretly dreams of one day returning to power. 

 

Ultimately, the state of British politics is deeply depressing: one rather wishes that Larry the Cat could be Prime Minister; a reassuring feline presence and someone who seems to know what he's doing ... [4]

 

 

 

      

 

Notes

 

[1] Truss has been the Member of Parliament for South West Norfolk since 2010 and has held various Cabinet posts under David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, including Environment Secretary (2014-16), International Trade Secretary (2019-21), and Foreign Secretay (2021-22), so is absolutely complicit in the fact that we are now where we are as a country.

 

[2] The fact that the UK isn't more energy self-sufficient - and has inadequate energy reserves - is not Vladimir Putin's fault.

 

[3] Cincinnatus opposed the rights of the common citizens and when his son, Caseo Quinctius, was put on trial for violently preventing the tribune of the people from meeting in the Forum, he begged that his son be shown leniency. 

 

[4] Larry - who holds the title of Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office - has been the most loved and most trusted member of the present government for the last decade; by far the best appointment made by David Cameron during his time as PM.  

 

 

A Brief Comment on Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party

 

Boris Johnson is merely a gigantic jellyfish, wallowing in the shallows before invariably being washed up, exhausted, on the shores of defeat.* 

 

If those within the Conservative Party who continue to lend him their support only knew how disastrous their loyalty will prove to be, they would be appalled. Fortunately, they are too stupid, too reckless, or too corrupt to care.    

 

 

*Note: I am not the first to have noticed the uncanny resemblance between the UK Prime Minister and this gelatinous free-swimming marine animal. In an article in The Spectator written ten years ago, Isabel Hardman expressed her belief that Johnson was, in fact, a "particularly powerful blond jellyfish" capable of delivering a nasty sting to those who get in his way. 

      It's worth noting also that, in 2013, Johnson called opposition members of the London Assembly great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies, which is ironic, if nothing else.