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UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

manchestereveningnews.co.uk

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Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#111

Post by breppp »

nailer wrote: post #75
atollk wrote: post #29

I know many people dislike this movement but really, I think it's a good idea. Yes, it removes the "free" internet as it was 20 years ago, but that's gone already anyway. Yes, it opens up the way to a police state without anonymous internet access, but arguing against any law to be against that just seems like straight up anarchism to me. I see both children and adults being manipulated by corporations with "algorith…

> it removes the "free" internet as it was 20 years ago I’m not sure free internet was ever good for us. I didn’t need to see all those beheading videos.

I think the bigger issue was when terror attacks started imitating FPS games

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#112

Post by maccard »

academic_84572 wrote: post #94
maccard wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is parental controls on devices.

Surely we know by now that this is not enough? Kids find ways around everything. Even adults find the 'digital wellbeing' tools on Android and iOS useless. Just look at the multitude of apps available for digital self regulation these days (ScreenZen, Freedom, BlockSite, etc). No single solution works for everybody at the moment. Regulation by itself is also insufficient. But maybe combining regulation with parental…

Except they are. I’m not aware of any actual bypasses of parental controls on iOS or android. You choose apps and allow or deny them, and you provide limits which are guarded by passcodes or parental prompt (on iOS at least).

> It feels like we're running out of time.

I mean, does it? It feels like we’re running guns blazing into something that will be trivially bypassable (hello free VPN to some random European country - remember Hola?).

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#113

Post by jdsnape »

academic_84572 wrote: post #94
maccard wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is parental controls on devices.

Surely we know by now that this is not enough? Kids find ways around everything. Even adults find the 'digital wellbeing' tools on Android and iOS useless. Just look at the multitude of apps available for digital self regulation these days (ScreenZen, Freedom, BlockSite, etc). No single solution works for everybody at the moment. Regulation by itself is also insufficient. But maybe combining regulation with parental…

I think the idea is that while individuals will absolutely find ways round it, it should help to reduce the network effect of everyone a kid knows being already on it. How true that is remains to be seen.

One campaign I’ve liked is one in the UK to try and get the parents of whole year groups in school to agree to not buy phones until their children are a certain age. This removes a lot of the peer pressure of ‘my friends all have one’.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#114

Post by drnick1 »

JonoBB wrote: post #98
Aurornis wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but really, I think it's a good idea. > Yes, it removes the "free" internet > Yes, it opens up the way to a police state without anonymous internet access Is anyone else as stunned as I am by how many posters on tech websites have suddenly gone full anti-free-internet and embracing the police state? The internet I grew up on was all about freedom and resisting the police state. Now the top voted comment (at least a…

Because it’s a lesser evil, at least in the UK, which has a reasonably well functioning government and society. As much as it pains me, I’d rather have that than the brain rot being forced on young kids. And you can argue all you want about “parental control”, but there are too many parents who don’t care, plus peer pressure is a real thing. I also think that at that age all the social media sites are a net negative.

> Because it’s a lesser evil, at least in the UK, which has a reasonably well functioning government and society.

You wrote this in jest, right, right?

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#115

Post by techblueberry »

_heimdall wrote: post #108
SkyeCA wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over time it's become harder and harder to deny how bad some aspects of the internet are for people, especially for young people. Whether it's right or wrong it's not shocking that people are more willing than ever to entertain the idea of internet restrictions.

I'd dig deeper on the problem though. More fundamentally, laws like this are based on the fundamental assumption that both children and their parents can't make good decisions and that the state must instead force the right decisions on them.

Creativity requires limitations.

> More fundamentally, laws like this are based on the fundamental assumption that both children and their parents can't make good decisions and that the state must instead force the right decisions on them.

Also yeah? Sure? You may not like that that’s the conclusion. Why does everyone say this like it’s some kind of gotcha? Children are incapable biologically of making good decisions.

But yes, I cannot make these decisions of myself and want the state to step in. It’s way too big a surface area.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#116

Post by Bender »

I asked my Ouija board some questions and determined that:

- Select 3rd parties friends of government officials will be taxpayer funded to verify government ID's and live facial recognition.

- Said data will be "accidentally leaked" and somehow a myriad of 3rd parties and criminals end up with this data.

- People will be encouraged to purchase some form of identity protection monitoring service.

- People will conclude or theorize that all of this could have been avoided.

I have some ideas that could solve this without impacting anyone currently using the internet but there are no financial incentives for government officials to participate thus such ideas are dead in the water.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#117

Post by drnick1 »

maccard wrote: post #68
peab wrote: post #60

Interesting that Canada is trying to do the same thing. Seems suspiciously similar. The idea that this is about surveillance is also interesting. I think it's important we ask: could we invoke this ban without surveillance? - identity scan is one solution But surely there are other solutions? Can't you just make laws that get kids in trouble if they get caught on social media? Kids get in trouble for missing school..…

The solution is parental controls on devices.

The solution is parenting, period. Do not give your kid an Internet-connected device before they are ready for it.

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#118

Post by [deleted] »

maccard wrote: post #70
Fervicus wrote: post #31

Somehow all the countries are suddenly proposing the same thing. You'd think at least one of these countries might try something different if they actually cared about the kids, like banning algorithmic feeds. Not suspicious at all.

I don’t think it’s suspicious - I think trust globally in tech companies has been deteriorating at the same pace in most western countries is all.

[deleted]

Re: UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

#119

Post by epihelix »

yladiz wrote: post #25
spacedoutman wrote: post #16

Didn't work in Australia, won't work in the UK. Parents will just scan the kids in.

Can you provide some evidence that it didn’t work in Australia? Given the ban hasn’t been in place that long I’d like to see your sources about it not working.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/31/meta-...

Limited success might be a better term. But if a supposedly blanket ban only stopped 30% of under-16s accounts from accessing social media, that does seem pretty failure-esque.

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