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The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

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Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#51

Post by selcuka »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #43
100ms wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're just repeating the "it's technically imperfect" argument again.

Psychologists call this black or white thinking - in this case, either something works perfectly or it's useless. Next to impossible to get a person who believes this that they're engaging in a cognitive distortion though. I tried the same thing you're doing, once. I gave up. They will die on this hill and then wonder why they lost long after everyone else had moved on. It's possible to make effective arguments in li…

> Psychologists call this black or white thinking

The same can be told for your thinking. You (and several other posters) lumped several arguments into the same Nirvana fallacy [1]:

1. It's not 100% effective

2. It's only 50% effective

3. It is not even 10% effective

These are very different from each other. The first one may actually mean what you described (either something works perfectly or it's useless) but the others must be discussed separately.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#52

Post by pj_mukh »

Lerc wrote: post #37
pj_mukh wrote: post #17

Article mostly cites self-reported studies ie the kids think that the kids are doing alright, which is a different statement from the kids are actually doing alright. Most teachers seeing generational changes are raising five alarm fires around how badly the kids are doing. Actually testing kids is showing a startling reverse Flynn effect [1]. I’m curious what the author has in terms of actual evidence here? [1] http…

Alright covers a broad spectrum of properties. Most teachers have been asking for more resources for decades, warning of the consequences of not doing so. It seems a little on the nose to ignore their warnings and when the consequences manifest opt to blame something else entirely.

This is not about resources anymore.

What’s especially interesting is that a lot of teachers take a paycut [1] to go teach in private school partly because the kids are better adjusted, rich kids have more comprehensive childcare and don’t need to rely on screens/social media for the gaps in parenting.

For a taste of all these details, go on r/Teachers

[1]: https://www.ccu.edu/blogs/cags/2011/12/teaching-in-private-s...

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#53

Post by dyauspitr »

greatgib wrote: post #26

Crazy to think that all of that happens in the country of George Orwell that was probably too in advance for his time with 1984 and the Animal Farm. It was supposed to be a kind of satire of his own time, but it was in the end a perfect prediction of what is coming to us now. Scary to see how far will go the Pigs that are in command in UK, France, Canada, ...

No one is falling for this fear mongering anymore. The people are finally raising up en mass to this toxic mess…

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#54

Post by selcuka »

dyauspitr wrote: post #49
Reason077 wrote: post #9

My 15-year old niece who recently visited her cousins in Australia assured me that the recently enacted Aussie law did not affect her ability to access socials while in Australia, nor has it affected her U16 cousins, who still have their accounts. Apparently the age checking there only applies to newly created accounts.

Maybe not immediately but over time it can be given some teeth.

Over time those who are underage and have existing accounts will grow up.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#55

Post by Quarrelsome »

Mumsnet CEO is apparently on their advisory board, which more or less explains it. They just want something cheap they can tell someone else to implement to win the votes off concerned parents. It doesn't matter if it works, it just matters if they can carve out votes in 2029 for it. UK has a relatively long standing tradition of fucking itself over in order to win a single election (e.g. the Brexit ref).

Its particularly frustrating cos they ain't even done the OAuth properly like the Aussies have taken a pass at. Could even put an NGO as a shim in-between to protect privacy. But noOoOo, we'll ignore all the tech advice, do something shit and then follow it up by trying to "ban" VPNs when it clearly doesn't work, because we're thick.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#56

Post by arthurbrown »

pj_mukh wrote: post #17

Article mostly cites self-reported studies ie the kids think that the kids are doing alright, which is a different statement from the kids are actually doing alright. Most teachers seeing generational changes are raising five alarm fires around how badly the kids are doing. Actually testing kids is showing a startling reverse Flynn effect [1]. I’m curious what the author has in terms of actual evidence here? [1] http…

There is growing acknowledgement that this is related to laptop usage in classroom. Countries are recognizing this and rolling back policies, citing PISA rankings.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly0vk77vdko https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/15/educa...

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#57

Post by fhub »

A lot of issues require holding two ideas in your head at once. Age verification chips away at privacy and internet freedom. It likely also reduces harm to some/many/whatever children, even if it’s imperfect and won’t stop everyone. The interesting question is where the right trade off sits. People often end up arguing only one side.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#58

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

skmurphy wrote: post #44
100ms wrote: post #23

Like most I've been listening to this same old argument for nearly 30 years. Old enough now to know it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to even be 50% effective to mark a substantial improvement, a significant chunk of young people won't even need a technical restriction beyond being told the behaviour is against the law because it's bad for them. But keep goading with "it's technically impossible" and wat…

I don't care if it's trivial to implement and impossible to bypass: it's an effort to eliminate anonymous Internet browsing/commenting because everyone over 16 has to submit ID as well. Its the end of free speech on the part of the Internet the UK controls.

A cynic might wonder if this is the real aim.

Context: the government has objectively become increasingly authoritarian, with the partial elimination of jury trials, the criminalisation of peaceful protest, the use of anti-terror sentencing laws for activities that are clearly not terrorist, and other actions which set up ideal conditions for an oppressive dictatorship.

It's hard to take the idea that this is about concern for teens seriously when the PM bypassed civil service vetting norms to make a known friend of Epstein ambassador to the US.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#59

Post by buzer »

100ms wrote: post #23

Like most I've been listening to this same old argument for nearly 30 years. Old enough now to know it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to even be 50% effective to mark a substantial improvement, a significant chunk of young people won't even need a technical restriction beyond being told the behaviour is against the law because it's bad for them. But keep goading with "it's technically impossible" and wat…

Kids (or more specially teens) will just find a site that doesn't require the verification. There will be some and you better hope it's not one run by intelligence agency in unfriendly country.

It would be way better to just reduce the harms in general by e.g. regulating algorithms. Those are things that you can do when people are using platform that you still have some control over.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#60

Post by Lerc »

kian wrote: post #45
Lerc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright covers a broad spectrum of properties. Most teachers have been asking for more resources for decades, warning of the consequences of not doing so. It seems a little on the nose to ignore their warnings and when the consequences manifest opt to blame something else entirely.

It doesn't seem like there's been a precipitous drop in resources compared to the decades of requests and warnings that have led up to this point. So what's different now, if not resourcing?

I'm not sure which precipitous less than a decade drop you are referring to, but I would be inclined to think, in the last decade, a period of social isolation and absence of education might have been a factor.
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