Joe Rogan hosts the most listened-to podcast in Britain. In July a relatively unknown British MP got two hours on it. What he was recruiting for should worry every parent, and every woman.

$567 million sounds like a punishment. So I did the maths. It's one day of Meta's revenue, 0.9% of a year's profit, and on the median UK salary it works out at £366. A boiler repair, for being legally ruled a public nuisance to children.

He got arrested. The algorithm never did. On the machine still recruiting a generation of boys, and what to do about it today.

The ban's real. So is every argument against it. Here's what I think of each one, where I'm on shakier ground than I'd like, and why none of it changes my mind.

I’ve been working on this for weeks. I finished it on Monday 15th June 2026. The same day the government finally did something. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

He gets 23 minutes before the algorithm radicalises him. She gets 8 before it tells her she’s not enough. Same machine. Different position.

Every time I write about what the internet is doing to kids, someone says it's just bad parenting. It’s not. We age-gate everything else that harms children and back parents with the law. Social media is the one shop with no line, and we're blaming the parents instead of the dealer.

Twenty three minutes. That is how long it takes the internet to start teaching a thirteen year old boy that women are beneath him. He never went looking. It found him, in his pocket, while no one was watching.