“The screens just took over!” Keir Starmer declaimed against the evils of social media, unafraid to identify tech as the common enemy of people, young and old.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall conceded the restrictions would not be foolproof but that the move was about “resetting expectations” for teens and even younger children over what they had access to. She might have added that teenagers in particular have a habit of ignoring, contravening and sometimes rebelling against expectations. And they will do so again.

Starmer is missing the irony. He’s not the only one, though he might have taken time to glance back in history at other notable attempts to extinguish habits that have only inflamed them. Here’s a guide to some of the more combustible cases.

Prohibition, the prevention by law of alcohol manufacture and sale in the United States, was inarguably the most paradoxically productive ban in history. It became the catalyst for the growth of illegal liquor production and its widespread sale, as well as the rise of unlicensed nightclubs and bars owned and run by opportunist entrepreneurs. It cultivated a network of organized crime that thrives to the present day, remaining Prohibition’s most enduring legacy: the Mafia.

At a time when industrialization was transforming the US and an embryonic consumer society was beginning to take shape, American culture was also affected by a religious revival that encouraged the abolition of slavery and temperance — this being the abstinence from alcoholic drink. The influence of what was known as the temperance movement became felt at political levels. In 1846, the state of Maine introduced a legal ban on alcohol; similar legislation followed.

In 1920, Congress passed the National Prohibition Act, better known as the Volstead Act after US Representative Andrew J. Volstead. The popular appetite for booze was undiminished, of course, and smugglers, known and bootleggers (from smugglers’ practice of concealing bottles in their boots) initially brought in liquor from abroad. Soon, unlawful distilleries and distribution networks emerged, which became manna from heaven for the then primitive, secret Italian body of gangsters who controlled operations until and beyond Prohibition’s end in 1933.

By then, the Mafia, once a loose assembly of miscreants, had transformed into a sophisticated national arrangement. It had its own hierarchy and amenable politicians who helped it become a near-invulnerable criminal enterprise.

Hundreds of popular songs have faced total radio bans, varying wildly between the UK and US due to different broadcasting laws. While the UK’s BBC issued official national decrees, American censorship relied on uncoordinated bans from major regional radio networks. Censors on both sides generally targeted songs across five broad categories.

1. On grounds of taste: The BBC regularly banned “teen tragedy” discs for being too morbid. Ray Peterson’s Tell Laura I Love Her (1960) and The Shangri-Las’ Leader of the Pack (1964) became prohibited in the UK due to romanticizing death. Yet both tracks aired freely in the US and became best-sellers.

2. Sexually explicit material: The BBC controversially pulled Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax (1984) from its airwaves for its lyrics (“when you wanna come”). Paradoxically, the scandal helped it become an immense hit.

3. Drug-related themes: Dozens of major American stations blacklisted the Byrds’ Eight Miles High (1966) from dozens of major US stations after a prominent American industry journal, Bill Gavin’s Record Report, labeled it a “drug song,” severely halting its commercial momentum. Not so in the UK, where the track met with far less scrutiny and bolstered the band’s strengthening reputation.

4. Disrespectful or political content: The BBC totally blacked out the Sex Pistols’ anti-monarchist anthem, God Save the Queen (1977), for disrespecting the Royal Family. It remained legal to buy in stores and is, of course, now a classic.

5. Shadow ban: Following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the media giant Clear Channel issued a massive corporate shadow ban to over 1,100 US radio stations, effectively wiping Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door off the airwaves.

Piety and pop music never mix well: The latter is brash, irreverent, unruly and often deliberately offensive. It’s meant to be. Outsiders never quite get this.

Legally prohibiting a practice, excluding people or banishing things is one thing. Controlling beliefs, especially strongly-held beliefs based on spiritual apprehension rather than evidence is quite another. So, bans on religions have been scarce: just two in history — Albania in 1967, and Democratic Kampuchea (now Cambodia) in 1975.

• Albania: Enver Hoxha founded his country’s Communist Party and rose to prime minister in 1945. He drew support from the Soviet Union. As a stalwart devotee of Stalin, Hoxha adopted ruthless methods in his modernization program, confiscating land, nationalizing businesses and eliminating opponents. He also outlawed religion, closing churches, mosques and religious institutions and placing the state in charge of Albania’s cultural and intellectual activities. Possessing a Bible or Quran became an offense punishable by years in prison, until the regime collapsed in December 1990. Hoxha himself came from a Muslim family.

• Kampuchea: In 1975, Cambodia’s five-year civil war ended and the Khmer Rouge rebels led by communist Pol Pot assumed control, proclaimed “year zero” and embarked on a reconstruction process that killed 1.7 million people, almost a quarter of the population, and considered parents unnecessary. Like Hoxha, Pol Pot was an adherent of Stalinism. The Khmer Rouge destroyed about 95% of Buddhist temples and wrecked both Christian churches and Muslim mosques. Many surviving sacred buildings transformed into pigsties, storage sheds or prisons. Invading Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge government in January 1979.

In both cases, religious belief returned. Albania is now constitutionally secular and its main denominations are Islam and Christianity. Theravada Buddhism is dominant in Cambodia, though there are Muslim and Christian minorities.

The legal suppression of cannabis became a catalyst for its global visibility. First banned federally in the US via the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act, the prohibition backfired by piquing public curiosity.

The irony deepened. By forcing cannabis into the same underground market as hard narcotics, the law inadvertently turned cannabis into a “gateway,” granting users access to more addictive and destructive drugs like heroin and cocaine. Decades of enforcement failed to crush demand. If anything, they revealed the futility of punitive laws.

Public perceptions shifted in the 21st century. In 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first US states to legalize recreational use, initiating a period of reform. Today, the transition of a once-outlawed weed into a lawful, taxable commodity and one with medical value, serves as the final irony. Once a symbol of rebellion, cannabis is now an industrial product.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese introduced this ban in December 2025 amid public anxiety over online harms, mental health and addictive algorithms. He intended the legislation to protect young people by restricting access to major platforms, though evidence emerging suggests this has not been the case.

A central reason is the widespread use of workarounds. These include creating accounts with false dates of birth, using older accounts, borrowing adults’ accounts and exploiting weaknesses in age-verification systems. Rather than eliminating social media use, the ban simply changed how many young people accessed it.

Independent economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research discovered that only one in four teenagers obeyed the ban. Australia’s own eSafety Commissioner reinforced the same pattern. One study by BMJ found that around 85% of teenagers under age 16 are still using social media. Many social media platforms don’t even use age verification, as Australian law doesn’t mandate its application. In other words, the enforcement mechanism barely registered in everyday use.

Additionally, the BMJ study found that the ban has barely affected how much time teenagers under 16 spend on social media. It has not eliminated access, nor meaningfully reduced it. Australia’s social media ban was an effective concession to public anxiety, Albanese’s attempt to assuage a moral panic. But not a practical policy capable of governing the digital environment it claims to regulate.

The legislation also reflected a naive assumption that technology companies could effectively police users’ ages and online behavior. This underestimated both the technical limitations of age assurance and the ingenuity of young users. At the same time, public debate concentrated overwhelmingly on the risks of social media while paying comparatively little attention to its educational, social and communicative value.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

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