The Prime Minister has just announced a social media ban for all those under the age of 16. This is a blunt piece of legislation that misses the point and, to an extent, suggests that, like every other democratic leader, he is in hock to the social media giants. This is called regulatory capture. Young people in Australia are using virtual private networks (VPNs), manipulating age verification, using older siblings’ social media accounts, and using chatbots that tell children how to bypass these restrictions. This ban comes just 3 weeks after one of the largest consultations in recent times. Ian Russel has criticised this decision on many of the grounds I have mentioned above, and to rub salt into the wound, Starmer has let the social media moguls off the hook. There is nothing in his announcement about social literacy, which is about how schools teach students to navigate the complex information, misinformation, and disinformation ecosystem. This seems like a Prime Minister desperate to show his ability to govern; unfortunately, it shows the exact opposite: the desperation to hold on to his job.
I want to spell out in more detail the nature of “regulatory capture.”
Regulatory capture is a form of government failure where a regulatory agency, created to act in the public interest, instead becomes dominated by the commercial interests of the industry it is supposed to regulate and oversee. In this case, it refers to the Tech Bros that control Meta, X, TikTok, ChatGPT, and Google. Instead of protecting consumers, the agency ends up enforcing rules that favour established firms.
The question is: how does this capitulation happen?
The first well-known and established route is the revolving door. This is where ex-government employees who were employed by us to regulate these companies end up working for the very same companies, creating obvious conflicts of interest. This will include Nick Clegg, former Deputy Prime Minister under David Cameron, who famously got a job with META, and George Osborne, who took up a position with BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager and a major investor in social media and AI. The regulatory bodies, such as Ofcom, are beholden to the industry and companies they are regulating for complex data and information. These companies have enormous lobbying power through indirect political contributions and public relations clout that can influence policy. The consequences of all this nefarious activity by the companies mentioned above result in the stifling of competition, creating mega monopolies, higher costs to the consumer and the undermining of social cohesion. This type of oligarchic behaviour, along with plutocrats dressed up as democrats, leads to this being said: “ I think he(Donald)is a more mature and disciplined version of himself than he was in his first term.” This was said by Jeff Bezos after he funded Melania Trump’s reality show to the tune of $50 million.
What governments need to do is break up the Tech Bros’ social media and AI companies, not ban the kids, and then impose huge financial penalties on those businesses when they break the rules. When this affects shareholder dividends and share prices, guess who will force the management to change the corporate culture of these businesses. Also make them responsible as if they are publishers, just like our newspapers. This could make social media and related businesses legally liable for defamation, libel, fact-checking, vetting for harmful content, alternative facts and also be obliged to prevent harm and respect intellectual property. Today, they are not obliged to do any of that, and are hiding behind the myth that they are merely a platform, and “it’s not our fault, gov”.
Tech Bros can deliver all the necessary safety features on their so-called platforms; however, it is more profitable to kiss Donald’s ass. We as a society must apply huge pressure on our political class to act. We, the people, must form our very own version of the Chartists and the Luddites because if we don’t, the Tech Bros and the plutocrats are not just coming for our democracies and our brains, but our futures.
Suneil Sharma
16th June 2026
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The Gob 
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