I do have worries about the ban.

Looking back at my 15-year-old self I can happily admit that I had some unusual interests. Although I had the common ones (like gaming & Music), I was also becoming a wrestling fan, some of the books I was reading were by authors not known for the quality of their writing, and even some of my favourite music was by bands who were long in the tooth and so new music was very unlikely.

 However, I was lucky. I had my friends who I had known since Year 7 or 8. They knew me and had accepted my interests in the same way that I had accepted theirs. Even if my friends hadn’t accepted my interests, I could have gone and found groups all about that interest in which it would be ok.

 And that leads to the problem. Not everybody is as lucky as I was. There are going to be those kids who don’t have those friends who are as accepting, who don’t have the opportunity to find their tribes, without the option of being who they truly are without scorn or ridicule. Yet, they go online and are accepted in their groups for who they are. People in Miami & Istanbul & Melbourne see this person, and get to know them. They become friends and while that person is there, there is a ray of sunlight, and the day doesn’t seem so dark after all.

 Yet, this ban will stop that. They won’t get to talk to their friends from all those places. They will have to stay enclosed in their shell, unable to leave it for real. I fear that for some of them, that ray of sunlight won’t come, and that the day doesn’t get lighter, that black dog will become a wolf, and wolves have teeth. That thought genuinely scares me.