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Under-16s to be banned from social media, Starmer announces

bbc.co.uk

61–70 of 118 posts

Re: Under-16s to be banned from social media, Starmer announces

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australian here, the under 16 ban was put in place early this year and I haven't ID verified for anything.

…so, have kids actually stopped watching Youtube?

Watching youtube wasn't banned. They just got banned from having an account and participating in the social features of youtube.

As for how effective the ban was on getting kids off social media in general, I think it's a long process that doesn't entirely sit on this change. Banning phones in schools has been a much faster more radical improvement.

It's going to take a lot more work to defeat the tech giants but I'm glad we are trying.

Re: Under-16s to be banned from social media, Starmer announces

#62

Honest question: Is this about anything else than forcing all citizens to ID themselves to the government before using digital services?

Probably? Social media has a ton of negative influence on young people. One of which is reducing time spent on in-person socializing which leads to decrease in number of romantic relationships and children born.

This is something government deeply cares about because the business that bought it needs there to be more workers so that the labor remains dirt cheap.

Re: Under-16s to be banned from social media, Starmer announces

#64

Honest question: Is this about anything else than forcing all citizens to ID themselves to the government before using digital services?

The proper way to implement it is to issue digital IDs and use ZK proofs to verify the age. That way the service doesn't know anything other that the fact that you have an official digital ID and that you are at least a certain age. The ID issuer does not need to be involved in anything other than issuing the ID, making it perfect when it comes to privacy, while still fulfilling the goal of having an age limit.

If this is built on open standards, so that anyone can use it for free, it would be a big positive step forward for everyone.

Re: Under-16s to be banned from social media, Starmer announces

#65
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australian here, the under 16 ban was put in place early this year and I haven't ID verified for anything.

I'm not sure that will bring a lot of relief to the concerned side as it implies you are being fingerprinted by all the websites that are subject to this verification rule.

Of course, the social media sites were already fingerprinting you and guessing your age, gender, interests, etc for advertising.

Re: Under-16s to be banned from social media, Starmer announces

#68

Can this be realistically enforced without parents help?

From the polling I've seen, a majority (90%!) of parents are amongst those who called for this ban: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/britain-expec...

This means much more support for the ban by parents than by non-parents, as the full population average is about 75% support.

Re: Under-16s to be banned from social media, Starmer announces

#69
post #2

> The ban will therefore include platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. > "We do not intend for messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal to be included in the social media ban." YouTube is a bit of a surprise here, but I guess with Shorts they put themselves in the same category as Tiktok, etc.

YouTube allows parents to turn off shorts for their kids (if their kids are part of their family account). Unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to turn off shorts for oneself without resorting to browser extensions.
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