Tollywood’s ace director Ram Gopal Varma always stays pro active on social media and drops his views on the trending topics. Be it the burning news topic or the trending memes or finally be it the movie reviews, he always puts his thought forward and interacts with the fans too. Of late, he dropped his view on the social media ban for minors after Ghaziabad tragedy on his Twitter page…
His post reads, “BAN THE BANNERS The core problem with banning social media to protect children under 16 from so called offensive content also will handicap them in today’s hyper competitive global information economy. It’s foolish to think social media is just a frivolous distraction because in today’s times , it’s the primary pipeline for real time knowledge, skills, and networks that determine who gets ahead. Kids in countries without bans will gain constant exposure to cutting edge learning resources like YouTube tutorials, Reddit threads, TikTok explainers, and global forums that teach coding, languages, entrepreneurship, science, and current events faster and more engagingly than traditional classrooms. Instant access to diverse perspectives, breaking news, and opportunities that kids in restricted countries only encounter later, if at all, through much slower and curated channels will create a stark competitive inequality . A 14 year-old in a non banning country builds an intuitive mastery of information flows, builds online communities, experiments with ideas, and stays ahead of a counterpart in a banning country like Australia where the kids will miss the informal education, the discoveries, and the early digital social capital that will compound over time into better education outcomes, career edges, and innovative thinking. The “protection” rationale of banning sounds noble, but it ignores how the modern world actually works. Information speed is now a decisive factor in both personal and national success. Banning access will not eliminate risks .. it simply outsources the information advantage to children elsewhere, widening the very inequalities governments claim to care about. Kids will still encounter the world eventually, but those denied early, guided exposure risk entering it less prepared, less adaptable, and less informed than the unrestricted In an era where knowledge compounds exponentially online, these bans don’t safeguard childhood but they will create a generation of digital latecomers, structurally behind in the global race for ideas, skills, and opportunities. The countries that keep access open are effectively giving their youth a powerful head start. The “offensive content” excuse, while real in isolated cases, pales against the systemic cost of information deprivation in a competitive world . This should be a critical warning about trading long term capability for short term safety procedures”.
