Has social media turned the SEND crisis into a culture war?

Social media platforms are built to reward engagement — and that means they end up rewarding posts that appeal to our own worst tribal and sensational instincts. Those incentives may be shaping how the SEND crisis is discussed long before policy makers enter the conversation. Joanna Grace explores what that looks like from the inside. — Duncan, Editor

When Agreement Ends and Battle Lines Begin

Everyone agrees that the SEND system is in crisis. Everyone agrees something must change. But agreement ends there.

The arguments around special educational needs and disabilities intersect: people call for neuroaffirming practice; others campaign for greater recognition of hidden disabilities or increased visibility of those with profound needs. Politically they are grouped together under the broad heading of “SEND”, while online they fracture into increasingly separate tribal camps: binary, moral and absolute.

Not arguments, but battlegrounds.

As a Xennial (a microgeneration born between 1977 and 1985, we had analogue childhoods and digital adulthoods), I have had a front-row seat to the way social media discourse has seeped into political debate. For more than two decades I have worked in special education: as a teaching assistant, special school teacher, consultant and researcher in profound disability. I am autistic, parent one autistic and one non-autistic child, and have fostered children with complex disabilities. My life, work and the people I love are deeply entangled with the SEND debate both online and in parliament.

I have occupied online spaces from the early years of MySpace and Facebook through to today’s algorithmic landscape. Watching, in that time, social media shift from user-controlled spaces built on mutual friendships to a platform-controlled interactions built on keeping user attention through automated recommendations. I can feel the changing shape of political debate, and more importantly, I recognise that shape from the changing shape of the social media landscape.

Why Social Media Rewards Conflict in SEND Debates

The history of special education in Britain has always been a story of changing assumptions. From the Idiots Act of 1886 and the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913, which first recognised those with learning disabilities, through to the abolition of the category “ineducable” in 1970 and the Warnock Report of 1978, which created the idea of inclusive education. Slowly we have moved from categorisation and segregation towards rights, inclusion and parental/pupil voice.

Progress has never come quickly. Big ships turn slowly. Political decision-making may sit at the helm, but increasingly it is steering through social media storms that effect the direction of travel. Unlike the mechanisms of Westminster or academic research, social media rewards immediacy. Understanding the relationship between where people increasingly receive information and the shape of political debate feels essential, not just in SEND.

How Algorithms Shape Public Opinion on Special Education

Platforms reward certainty over uncertainty, confidence over complexity and emotional reaction over careful consideration. Their success depends on engagement, and engagement often comes through conflict. Algorithms do not distinguish between thoughtful debate and outrage. They simply recognise what keeps us scrolling.

Increasingly, they serve us more extreme versions of ourselves. People who disagree with us cease to become individuals with differing perspectives. Instead they become irrational, dangerous or morally suspect. We no longer assume disagreement emerges from different experiences or interpretations of evidence. We assume bad faith. Opponents become caricatures rather than people.

Why Nuance Matters in SEND Policy

Recently I watched a social media campaign propel a “ban list” of educational approaches. Ideal online fodder: sign the petition if you are with us; if not, become part of the problem. I read through the list. Some approaches reflected exactly the kinds of intervention criticised by contemporary neuroaffirming thinkers: practices focused heavily on normalising behaviour and making autistic children appear less autistic. Approaches I would happily see disappear. Others did not.

One method stood out because its foundations were not about changing children but adapting ourselves. Its central premise recognised multiple valid ways of communicating and argued that connection comes not through conformity to a neuronormative ideal but through a willingness to listen differently. I found myself wondering: how this approach had found its place on the list?

People asked questions. Was the list based on research evidence — itself a slow and imperfect route towards understanding? Had distinctions been made between fundamentally different practices? What informed inclusion? Answers were not forthcoming.

The creator of the list became increasingly emotional, posting videos expressing frustration and rage. Their feelings were clearly sincere. Sincerity online carries moral weight. Authenticity is our modern morality. Once we did the right thing despite it requiring a suppression of self. Now we increasingly forgive obnoxiousness if someone insists they were “being true to themselves”. In digital spaces, emotional expression is intertwined with power. The message was clear: the list was not open to discussion. Agree or leave. Discussion itself represented betrayal.

I watched teachers and practitioners I know to be deeply compassionate begin doubting themselves. People who spend long days supporting vulnerable children wondered whether they had unknowingly caused harm. Years of careful practice collapsed into a simple binary: Good people versus bad people.

Social media loves this framework because it is legible. It travels well.

Outrage spreads faster than nuance ever can.

But policy cannot function this way. Special education does not conform to binaries. It is messy and complicated, just like the people and communities it serves. Research evolves. Children differ. Families differ. Interventions that help one child may harm another. The work requires humility, uncertainty and discussion.

Listening Across Disagreement in Disability Communities

The SEND system undoubtedly requires reform. Schools are struggling. Families are exhausted. Change is necessary. But if we allow algorithmic structures to shape political arguments, we risk replacing deliberation with performance and understanding with virality. Real change has never emerged from shouting louder. It has emerged from listening long enough for people to feel heard. Beneath the anger I witnessed online was someone who desperately needed to be listened to.

Meaningful change involves listening until rage and hurt give way to compassion and consideration, it is dependent on our ability to believe that people with opposing views may still be acting in good faith.

Increasingly, that feels radical.

There is no easy fix here. Migrations to alternative platforms have not solved this — research into user migration patterns shows toxicity tends to follow rather than dissolve, wherever a community relocates. Smaller, tightly moderated spaces may offer calmer discourse, but they rarely have the scale to shift the wider conversation. For now, we have to work within the platforms we have, while being honest about their limitations.

Protecting your own mental health matters just as much as the debate itself — Parliamentary evidence on online abuse experienced by disabled people underlines why. Our piece on reducing harm through social media has some practical starting points.

But ultimately, we’re all working towards the same goal here: improving lives. Let’s not be so quick to dismiss each other’s experiences and choices, or to ostracise the people who disagree with us. — Duncan, Editor