7 ms·
UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s
- anotherhue 4mo agoFeels heavy handed, but the brain-rot seems to be quite real, so I don't see a better option.
- dryarzeg 4mo agoThe only thing that worries me here (although I'm not in UK; but if this practice will get adopted worldwide...) is how exactly the social media platforms will verify the age of their users. Pretty common worry these days, I guess, but I would rather not use any social media, including "needed" ones like LinkedIn, than give my passport to hell knows which third party or parties. Oh yeah, and what about BlueSky, Mastodon and similar? Can they afford age verification? I'm pretty much sure they will be considered "a social media platforms" as well.
- oneeyedpigeon 4mo agoI'm in the UK; BlueSky already requires age verification for DMs, which I can no longer use.
- dryarzeg 4mo agoWow. Sorry to say that, but a few more steps in that direction from UK government - like blocking "non-compliant" platforms and/or banning VPN services and blocking VPN protocols entirely - and you will have a Western Russia here in terms of censorship. Maybe even worse... I'm feeling sorry for you; no irony or sarcasm intended, honestly.
- n4r9 4mo agoHow does it benefit the UK government to block social media for children?
- pjc50 4mo agoMore votes from the Daily Mail section. Fewer voter from young people, though. The proposed curfew is even more stupid: https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/how-uk-social-media-ban-work-curfew-tiktok-4477847 https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/how-uk-social-media-ban-wo... Which would mean that a sixteen year old would be able to stand in a polling station and vote at 9pm but not then go on Tiktok once they'd left. (yes, the same government which doesn't trust children with social media has also lowered the voting age. No, this makes no sense. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/representation-of-the-people-bill-policy-summaries/votes-at-16 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/representation-of... )
- dryarzeg 4mo agoI'm not the UK government, so how would I know for sure? I'm just making some assumptions, no more than that. One common route that comes to my mind is this: block [something-dangerous] for children, then implement age verification for [something-dangerous], then use it as a tool of censorship. It's way easier to identify and track individuals based on their passport/ID/driving license than based on their email, IP address or even phone number. And then you're getting jailed for posts somewhere on BlueSky or X or on any other social platform because they were hate speech/disinformation/discrediting the armed forces (the last one is the real thing in Russia, and I just see the UK as the country which goes the same path) - while actually you was just criticizing the actions of people in power. And you can also legally ban and block platforms, services and even software which doesn't satisfy the requirements of age verification. That's how I see it; that is, I repeat, my assumptions and thoughts. I have never, never in my lifetime (which is rather short though) seen such proposals turn out to be good.
- n4r9 4mo agoI think it's absurd to say we're anywhere near Russia, a literal dictatorship. Russia blocks almost all Western and independent media, blocks or throttles Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, and WhatsApp. People who discredit the military can be jailed for 15 years. This is all based on the Russian government's own opinion on what is "dangerous". Conversely, social media is widely established as posing severe risks to children and teens. Heavy use is strongly linked to mental health issues, addiction, and disrupted sleep. It's not that different from banning the sale of hard drugs.
- philipwhiuk 4mo agoMastodon instances will probably block the UK if they are asked to implement it.
- s08148692 4mo agoParents taking responsibility for what their children can see and do on their devices is an option. Maybe free classes for tech-illiterate parents? There are options that don't involve forcing everybody to prove their age and provide ID verification to access social media
- hugh-avherald 4mo agoParents do not have infinite resources to 'take responsibility'. I do not think that is a practicable option, let alone a serious or optimal one.
- shevy-java 4mo ago> There are options that don't involve forcing everybody to prove their age and provide ID verification to access social media Indeed. Assuming this is the real goal. That would require of people to trust the government. I in general trust no government.
- wallaBBB 4mo agoNot when big tech is doing everything they can to bring harmful content to kids while pretending to sincerely offer guardrails.
- Delphiza 4mo agoWhat kind of class teaches 'tech-illiterate' parents to help their children not succumb to a multi-trillion dollar industry pushing out addictive and damaging content? It should be easy to develop such classes right? Maybe dust off the classes for 'health-illiterate' parents that were needed to stand up to the tobacco and alcohol industries? </s>
- oneeyedpigeon 4mo agoOne 'better option' would be to hold parents more responsible for crimes that their children commit. And to broaden the types of abuse that the state can respond to—if parents let their children habitually drink alcohol to excess or smoke tobacco underage, social services tend to get involved. Another 'better option' would be to prosecute tech companies that intentionally create addictive, harmful content. Banning social media use for anyone unwilling to hand over their secure information to private third-parties seems like one of the 'worst options' to me.
- 9dev 4mo ago> hold parents more responsible for crimes that their children commit. Oh yeah, punishing children for mistakes they need to make to learn not to make them and moving responsibility from parents to the government sounds like a great idea.
- pjc50 4mo agoThey were talking about actual serious crime, like the 13 year old knife murderer in Glasgow, who will undoubtedly have "previous". (There's a bottom 5% of kids whose parents are basically completely negligent or actively abusive, and they end up causing basically all of the problems)
- oneeyedpigeon 4mo agoI think that person was agreeing with me, sarcastically, because they're putting forward the opposite points to the ones I was making.
- pjc50 4mo agoA significant part of the brain rot involves full adults. Elon Musk is openly advocating riots in Northern Ireland; several people have been firebombed out of their houses. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/belfast-riots-protest-stabbing-ogilvie-alodid-b2994126.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/belfast-riot... Targeting kids is a distraction from making the difficult choice of confronting powerful adults.
- majorchord 4mo ago> Musk wrote, “Only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!” I'm certainly not defending the man, but that comment to me is definitely not plainly seen as "advocating riots"... I'd call that a very disingenuous stretch of the truth. If we're going to criticize people, I think we need to do it for the right reasons.
- pjc50 4mo ago> protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY For what outcome though, hmm? The exact opposite logic gets applied against supporters of Palestine such as Sally Rooney, who was threatened with a total ban on her (unrelated) work until the High Court ruled in her favor.
- roryirvine 4mo agoAnd what the fuck does he think a protest on the lower Newtownards Rd looks like, given the complex history & social context? He's not thick, he's (at best) reckless.
- ben_w 4mo ago> He's not thick, he's (at best) reckless. Reckless definitely. "Thick" is presently unclear: a lot of money and an existing competent team can hide a lot of damage upstairs; and it's not implausible that he has done that damage, even just because he is known to have sleeping difficulties[0], and sleeping difficulties are known to correlate with IQ impairment, and that's aside any questions about ketamine (between the war on drugs and AI SEO, I have no idea what that stuff really does). [0] https://futurism.com/elon-musk-tweets-sleep https://futurism.com/elon-musk-tweets-sleep
- m000 4mo agoIt is heavy handed on the wrong side. How about heavy-handed regulation of the Social Media platforms? Not content regulation, but operations regulation. I'm pretty sure bots and ai-spam can be both easily flagged and banned, something that would have a positive impact for minors and adults alike. But the platforms won't do it, because these drive engagement and keep their stock value up. Also, including the mid-teens (15-16) into the regulation may have a generational negative effect. This is the age you start to get interested in the world and how it works. Social Media is the primary medium teens use to get this information, having eclipsed traditional media (magazines, tv shows, radio shows etc.) Banning Social Media for these ages leaves a gap in newer generations maturing to adults. But maybe that's by design? I.e. make new generations indifferent to the world around them, and also prevent them from building resistance to (home) propaganda spread through Social Media.
- budududuroiu 4mo agoHuge win for surveillance capitalism. If Agentic AI is the future of online interaction, shopping, etc., a signal of "this is a verified human being" is golden to advertisers.
- cromka 4mo agoIt's also a huge win for children's future and cognition. Both of these things can be true. We need to figure out how to navigate this new reality and no action was getting really dangerous.
- budududuroiu 4mo agoParents have the choice of handing smartphones to their children. If cognition and future is that important, surely a parent wouldn't wait for government intervention
- tarkin2 4mo agoTeach a classroom of comprehensive children and then come back and say parents both want to and are able to control their children all of the time.
- n4r9 4mo agoYes, and that choice is far less successful if their children's friends all have smartphones already.
- cromka 4mo agoIts no longer an problem you can address on an individual basis. It affects whole communities, classroom as a whole, etc.
- hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 4mo agohttps://sinceyouarrived.world/taken https://sinceyouarrived.world/taken
- aledevv 4mo ago> “Children will be given back their childhoods,” As a parent, I completely agree. We need to protect children from the dangers of the completely uncontrolled "jungle" of social media. But above all, we need to give children back the right to experience a true, real childhood, made up of true friends, fresh air, friendships, and real relationships!
- shevy-java 4mo agoAnd that law ensures this? Really? Reminds me of the prohibition era.
- anonymars 4mo agoIsn't there a drinking age?
- budududuroiu 4mo ago> As a parent, I completely agree. What's stopping you from doing this so far? Handing a child a smartphone is a decision parents can make, withholding access to a smartphone is also a decision parents can make.
- hatefulmoron 4mo agoI'm not in favor of these social media bans, but I would think the benefit here is that without the ban your child will be in the "real world" while everybody else's is on social media. This would make the "real world" socialization benefits more difficult.
- ThalesX 4mo agoI want my child to go out, but first I need to force every other child to go out. Maybe that's why children are not out? Because parents wait for all the other children to go out?
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- shawabawa3 4mo agoHeadline makes it sound like this has taken effect. It's just been announced Might start taking effect in spring 2027
- shevy-java 4mo agoThe mandatory age sniffing will soon start as well. After all, the government wants to watch everyone, to verify your age now. Gone are the days of anonymity - they want to know your every move.
- nickslaughter02 4mo ago...by ID checking everybody. Big Tech loves this. > Google Wants to Be the ID Checkpoint for Europe’s Internet https://reclaimthenet.org/google-wants-to-be-the-id-checkpoint-for-europes-internet https://reclaimthenet.org/google-wants-to-be-the-id-checkpoi...
- matthewmorgan 4mo agoI presume I'll be forced to dox myself for free to use those platforms?
- EdiX 4mo agoOf course, that's the whole point. Gotta prevent another Belfast.
- pjc50 4mo agoExcept this doesn't, because most of the rioters are adults. In many of the previous riot/anti-immigrant violence cases, those arrested have substantial criminal records, which tends to lead to the "why is this person not in prison already?" discourse. (look at how long the court system queues are some time. It can be years from offence to conviction!)
- EdiX 4mo agoHate speech laws are already in place. All that's needed now is for everyone to doxx themselves for the speech-to-arrest pipeline to work smoothly.
- pjc50 4mo agoQuite a lot of people seem to publish hate speech under their own names and newspaper bylines. Pop quiz: which British journalist was cited as inspiration in the manifesto of Anders Breivik?
- JuniperMesos 4mo agoIf I was someone under the age of 16 in the UK I would absolutely attempt to circumvent this ban myself; and I'm happy to contribute to software that facilitates kids in the UK circumventing it.
- AltruisticGapHN 4mo agoYouTube seems a little much. Plenty of examples of bright kids who learn coding or electronics at a very young age, no doubt having access to YT is a big part of it. Hmm I guess those kids would use their parents account or something like that.
- kaelyx 4mo agoThis should be a parental decision, not a governmental one. UK parents are just offloading raising their kids.
- roryirvine 4mo agoParents aren't responsible for the harms caused by social media services. It's the operators who are responsible, and it's the operators who have the tools and resources available to reduce or mitigate those harms. So it is clearly they who should have taken action. But they haven't, and so here we are.
- kaelyx 4mo agoThe Ban for U16s is only going to push those who seek it out to darker areas with more risk. And for those who don't its only going to shift the current harm done onto those same children once they are old enough to then legitimately access theses services. Implementing the ban isn't going to fix a systematic failing of social media providers. This is the first step in a thinly veiled plan to re-implement the already unpopular UK Digital ID plan, under the guise of "protect our kids".
- Delphiza 4mo agoSocial media platforms are offloading detection of harmful content and algorithms to UK parents.
- ghusto 4mo agoIt should, but sadly most parents don't seem to be interested in parenting. This is the next best thing.
- timbit42 4mo agoThen let Darwinism rule.
- xracy 4mo agoI think it's reasonable for governments to signal a decision like this that parents can ultimately choose to bypass. So it's both to explain the harms and posture to reduce those harms to children, and to leave the final decision to parents.
- yanis_t 4mo agoI grown up in the 1990s, so as a teen I had access to the wild west of the decentralized internet in all its scary glory. It was pretty cool. But nowadays as a parent I see, instagram, tiktok are much more scarier for the damage they make psychologically and mentally to our kids. And with the AI slop it's only going to go downhill. So yes, it's a great decision, and other countries should follow the lead.
- r721 4mo agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48527766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48527766
- metalman 4mo agook, now guarantee that they get a library within walking distance, a bicycle a place to use it, and keep it, brick and mortor stores that have kids stuff for hobby and interest, parks, playgrounds, and police that call them "mam" and "sir", or, or, wait just keep them inside with an electronic monitoring device that cuts them off from there peers.
- PUSH_AX 4mo agoSocial media in it's current state is harmful. So I'm all for this.
- richsouth 4mo agoI'm guessing that as an adult I'm going to have to show my passport / drivers licence or something else to go on YouTube now? Stuff that.
- guilhas 4mo ago> “Children will be given back their childhoods,” Taking options away from children will not make their lives better just by itself And this social media ban might only move the conversation to less transparent channels WhatsApp and Telegram know more about children than their parents And child can still spend all doing unhealthy stuff. YouTube kids is addictive enough, at home watching Netflix, playing video games, tablet/phone addictive games... So the only real solution is force companies to provide better parental controls, maybe aided by AI And force companies to add better controls/defaults for the population in general to reduce addictive features
- ghusto 4mo ago> So the only real solution is force companies to provide better parental controls Parental controls require parents. Many "parents" don't seem to be interested. So in my opinion the only real solution is to get parents to parent. As an aside: > Taking options away from children will not make their lives better just by itself As someone who grew up with fewer options, I disagree. It was precisely because I had so few options that I explored (both physically and mentally).
- guilhas 4mo agoParents parenting is good. But there are no easy tools for them toto limit apps and websites on the device. And these companies provide very little help Probably making fund to provide an alternative social media with vetted content for children, without addictive features like feed scrolling, and requiring in person friendships or school partnership, would probably go further to help than bans > As someone who grew up with fewer options, I disagree. It was precisely because I had so few options that I explored (both physically and mentally). Can't see how having facebook banned but roblox, telegram groups, reddit, yt kids available will improve their mental health But banning everything is also probably just as dumb
- ChrisArchitect 4mo ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48537709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48537709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48527766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48527766
- ghusto 4mo agoSo much ambivalence. On the one hand: _Some_ kind of action is long overdue. For once "protect the children" is actually a valid argument (we should protect the adults too, but baby-steps ...). On the other hand: Technical people can see this is going nowhere good.
- remarkEon 4mo ago> Ofcom, which has powers to enforce online safety regulation, will conduct a rapid study on what is effective age assurance for verifying whether someone is over 16, while it is being asked to publish a “clear enforcement strategy.” Just so we’re all clear about what this particular social media ban is about. It’s about adults, and connecting a real name and face to online activity at the state-issued identification layer. I’m generally supportive of things like banning smartphones from schools, which is certainly an option the UK could’ve pursued, but this is coming at a time when social media is getting the blame for behavior of adults. Much easier to limit politically annoying voices of citizens when they have to authenticate through the state before logging in to speak.
- Lio 4mo agoDigital ID by the backdoor is here. Couldn't get it through the first or second times, just dress it up in "think of the children" rhetoric and run it from the Ofcom quango.