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The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents
- AussieWog93 4mo agoHonestly I would love to see a ban on social media in general, for all ages (or more specifically, content that's algorithmically feed and reliant on ads/engagement). Take out Tinder and gambling while you're at it. EFF are way off base here - this isn't "free as in free speech" but "free as in giant corporations are free to fuck people up the arse".
- d4nt 4mo agoI agree, chronological feeds of people you’ve explicitly chosen to follow are fine, but AIs looking to optimize engagement have caused untold damage to society. Future generations will study it as an example of unintended consequences in AI systems. The sooner we shutdown this disastrous technology the better.
- throw5 4mo agoRelated petition to be debated in parliament: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/757233 https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/757233
- 0-_-0 4mo agoThese never ever accomplish anything
- ungreased0675 4mo agoThe EFF is very wrong on this one. Some things are bad and we should keep children away from them.
- cebert 4mo agoParents are there to protect their children. The potential harm caused by eroded privacy and reduced control over our devices is not worth the perceived benefits of this policy in ensuring children’s safety.
- dreambuffer 4mo agoUnpopular to say, but the government is just better at deciding what's good for most children than their parents when it comes to matters of health. Unfortunately most parents are just very uneducated or lacking in discipline, and no child should be punished in the name of freedom. That being said, age verification laws are obviously a bad way to do that. They should just ban specific categories of social media outright.
- inigyou 4mo agoRight. Cigarette bans for children are unconstitutional.
- applfanboysbgon 4mo agoGreat, you do your job as a parent and keep your children away from them while leaving the rest of us free from your envisioned surveillance state.
- 4ndrewl 4mo agoHe says clicking "accept" to tracking cookies and their 762 "partners"
- 3997531578 4mo agoNot surpised supporters of the regime don't know about tracking protection. It's always the tech illiterates cheering on the surveillance.
- 4ndrewl 4mo agoWeird take. And brutally, if predictably, wrong (client ad-blockers, pihole, wireguard if you must know).
- applfanboysbgon 4mo agoUh, speak for yourself, guy.
- anthk 4mo agoI have no messages for these under Dillo, nor in most browsers with UBo or a global hosts file.
- odiroot 4mo agoSome things, like invasion of privacy, are bad enough, that we should protect all citizens from it, independent of age.
- CuriouslyC 4mo agoI'm all for protecting kids from facebook/insta/snap/etc, they have love hate relationships with all of those, but YT is a bridge too far, is's more a knowledge sharing platform than a social network.
- bob001 4mo agoThen it can separate the two separate components easily to satisfy whatever the law is. If it can’t then it is social media. A lot of YouTube is not knowledge sharing unless you view MrBeast as a sharer of knowledge.
- infotainment 4mo agoIf you primarily choose to watch educational videos sure, but YouTube can give you just as much brainrot as TikTok, depending on what the recommendation engine decides you might like.
- ndngmfksk 4mo agoI think the personalised content and advertising puts it into the same category. At least, I think it has the same problematic incentives.
- infotainment 4mo agoThe answer, IMO, is simply banning all algorithm-driven social media, for everyone and not just kids. This conveniently sidesteps the identity/privacy arguments, makes it much easier to enforce, and would present an even greater net benefit. There is no benefit to algorithmic social media at all, and everyone would be better off without it.
- ungreased0675 4mo agoI’d support that too, unless someone can make a case for the individual or societal benefits of an infinite feed?
- big85 4mo agoWe have parental controls on devices. The change forced by the UK government is to give control to corporations, instead of the parents. Parents are much better at knowing their own kid's age than corporations are. Teens keep fooling the age verification (pointing the camera at a video game character, using fake ID, even drawing beards on their face with a pen). But they aren't going to fool their own mother, and they don't need to trust ID verification startup with photographs of everbody's teenage kids to do it.
- Barrin92 4mo ago>We have parental controls on devices That's irrelevant because social media regulation is a collective action problem. No individual parent can restrict their kids access to social media without ostracizing it, it only makes sense if all parents together get their kids off these platforms.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- joe_mamba 4mo ago>it only makes sense if all parents together get their kids off these platforms Yes, and the wishes of all parents together != the wishes of the UK government which has its own agenda at play in which to weaponize this public outrage for their own benefit(mass surveillance and mass censorship). The UK government doesn't actually want what's best for all the children of all the parents, otherwise it wouldn't have allowed and even enabled the rape gangs and sweep the issue under the rug in a massive coverup.
- Barrin92 4mo ago>Yes, and the wishes of all parents together != the wishes of the UK government This legislation has widespread support among British parents across the political spectrum[1] "As YouGov has shown previously, such a policy would be widely popular with the general public. In our latest survey, looking more specifically at the views of parents, we find that 77% of those with children under the age of 18 would support a ban, compared to only 14% who are opposed.[...] Likewise, 76% of parents think the government needs to kick up their activity on this issue, although a much lower rate of 43% think they need to be doing “much more”." I don't even have any idea what the last paragraph, other than being some generic twitter rant has to do with the topic of the thread [1]https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/54969-eight-in-ten-parents-say-social-media-use-has-a-negative-impact-on-children https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/54969-eight-in-ten-parents...
- hactually 4mo agoSo just DNS block them in the UK. They don't need YouTube
- sunaookami 4mo agoThis is not about protecting kids, when will you finally understand?
- inigyou 4mo agoIt's both. Everyone except libertarians wants kids to be protected because right now we're harming them incredibly quickly. Also, Facebook wants that to be implemented by ID scans.
- cindyllm 4mo ago[dead]
- sunaookami 4mo agoNo it's not both. It's an excuse for mass surveillance.
- inigyou 4mo agoSo you think the children aren't being harmed? Or they are being harmed but we shouldn't make it illegal?
- sunaookami 4mo agoYou are still pretending it's about children when it's not.
- inigyou 4mo agoYou are ignoring the question I directly asked you.
- DonHopkins 4mo agoAs long as you're hysterically foaming at the mouth with enraged performative moral panic, then start with keeping kids away from Priests instead of Drag Queens.
- bob001 4mo ago> they’ll also lose access to educational videos on YouTube, local events on Facebook, and potentially cut off from distant friends and family. How in the world did kids ever survive before social media? Miracle of god keeping them sane every second of their miserable deprived lives. Seriously, this is such a bad argument for something that is a return to a previous known good state versus being a new state. No proof provided that social media makes any of these better versus either pre social media approaches or modern alternatives.
- iLoveOncall 4mo agoSo because humans used to survive in caves eating raw meet we should go back to that?
- bob001 4mo agoAh a strawmen augment. This is comparing two specific states. If you’re admitting that the two states of pre and post social media are the same by virtue of resorting to a strawmen then glad we agree.
- cbdumas 4mo agoIf governments want to set up online age gates, they should be responsible for providing an electronic ID system and enable privacy preserving age verification (zero knowledge proofs)
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4mo agoImplementation detail. Fine companies that allow minors access and they'll find a way to verify age by themselves. For liquor for example I don't think the govt actually specifies that you shall check ID they specify that you shall not sell to minors.
- foltik 4mo ago> they'll find a way to verify age by themselves. Yeah, by outsourcing it to some shady company that sells all your private info to the lowest bidder. See Discord for example.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4mo agoDon't use the site then? Or sites can compete on which age verifies in the least shitty way? I think we have been stuck in this way of life so long we can't imagine an alternative.
- foltik 4mo agoClassic. So tell me how I can just not deal with the credit bureaus? Or tax filing companies? Or any site that sells my data to adtech, without totally secluding myself from the modern web? Where’s the supposed competition? What you’re saying is functionally equivalent to “just deal with it,” since ultimately people will choose to have their privacy violated over the lifelong Sisyphean task of trying to avoid all of that. That doesn’t mean people don’t care about privacy, it’s just the current equilibrium in our broken system. > I think we have been stuck in this way of life so long we can't imagine an alternative. I agree.
- somewhereoutth 4mo ago*to billionaires but snark aside, society needs to have a big conversation (meaning political) about what is good and what is bad about what should really be understood as the 'connectivity revolution' of the last 10-20 years.
- CuriouslyC 4mo agoThe whole idea of this is broken, since so much of our collective knowledge is locked away in YouTube/Reddit. It's making a law against children in libraries because there are adult books in it.
- ilovecake1984 4mo agoThere is some okay stuff on YouTube. There is nothing stopping people reposting stuff on platforms without social media elements and with proper curation and publisher responsibilities. Most big YouTubers would love this to happen I’m sure.
- krapp 4mo agoThis will be a controversial statement here, but for better or worse, Youtube is a modern Library of Alexandria. It archives a significant amount of human knowledge and culture in video form, and for a lot of it, there is no backup. Big, popular channels do push their viewers to alternative platforms like Patreon because of Youtube's censorship guidelines and arbitrary demonetization, but a lot of valuable content is on smaller channels where the owners may not have the wherewithal to transfer all of their content, much less their audience.
- ilovecake1984 4mo agoYouTube is very mixed. Putting short form content on it was a mistake. It’s only not trash if you use it correctly. Watch some videos by some racists, you get fed videos making you racist. It has all the negatives of social media. Ideal the UK would just make platforms responsible as publishers. This is the dividing line which should apply for under 18s.
- krapp 4mo ago> It’s only not trash if you use it correctly. > Watch some videos by some racists, you get fed videos making you racist. So don't watch some videos by some racists, and curate your feed properly. I don't see why the government needs to get involved here. >This is the dividing line which should apply for under 18s. The problem is the dividing line won't stay there. A lot of people want social media regulated or banned outright for adults as well. The incentives to restrict freedom of speech and control narratives are all-consuming. Definitions will be intentionally vague so that they can apply to any platform that governments want to censor.
- big85 4mo agoAbout 2 million adults in the UK don't have government-issued photo ID. Certainly many 16-17 year olds will have trouble verifying their age. They're blocking huge sectors of the UK population from being able to use the internet normally.
- ilovecake1984 4mo agoNobody needs to use social media though. Really they should just torch the lot.
- hactually 4mo agoyou don't use YouTube?
- rolymath 4mo agoThe world was fine before youtube, it's not the end of the world. It's full of fake education who won't take responsibility by claiming they're "just entertainment". Realistically, the kids will find their way around the ban.
- ilovecake1984 4mo agoI use YouTube, but only watch stuff I SEARCH for or from people I have subscribed to. No watch next BS. If you have self control you can avoid the social media element of it. YouTube demonetisation tends to act as a reasonable steward on the platform, but it does need to be strengthened. I.e. make YouTube responsible as the publisher for any video with over 100k views. This would be totally doable.
- womble2 4mo agoDoesn't matter, if this goes through as is you will have to submit photo-id and/or facial scans linking you to a google account in order to watch any youtube other than the kids section.
- inigyou 4mo ago
- herghost 4mo agoThis is a horrible straw-man of the situation which somewhat conveniently manages to sidestep any real acknowledgement of the genuine harm and its scale. Terrible article.
- AJRF 4mo agoAm I right in thinking that the EFF doesn't launch any legal campaigns inside the UK (but they offer support to those who do) Is there a UK version of the EFF that fights in the courts against this lunacy or does it not quite work the same in the UK as it does in the US.
- daveoc64 4mo ago> Is there a UK version of the EFF that fights in the courts against this lunacy or does it not quite work the same in the UK as it does in the US. The government looks likely to introduce the ban as regulation through secondary legislation (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9824zvpz9po https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9824zvpz9po). That is open to judicial review. If primary legislation was instead passed, that's a lot harder to challenge - Parliament makes the law, so whatever Parliament said applies. Politics is very different in the UK than in the US, especially when the governing party has such a large majority. The banning of under-16s from social media has widespread support across the parties in Parliament.
- ilovecake1984 4mo agoIt’s overwhelmingly supported action. The technical incoherence doesn’t matter. What matters is being able to say “you can’t use Snapchat” and then they say “my friend xxx uses it” you can say “xxx’s parent are delinquent” This isn’t about blocking as much as setting societal expectations.
- rimeice 4mo agoTotally agree. Setting the tone is so important. It’s so bad it’s “illegal” is a lot more convincing than saying to your kid, “well the research shows…”
- ilovecake1984 4mo agoTotally. The next step is a national campaign explaining how apple screen time and android family works. In the Uk we had a lot of shock adverts for drinking driving. The same thing with online harms would go a long way.
- rimeice 4mo ago> they’ll also lose access to educational videos on YouTube, local events on Facebook, and potentially cut off from distant friends and family. Cmon, if you’re trying to make the case for how essential social media is for children under the age of 16, please find some better examples. As if there are no other sources of educational content online than YouTube and anyone who has left Facebook knows the last two points are simply not true. This is so weak from the EFF.
- throwawayffffas 4mo agoThey are really underestimating the harm of being on these platforms causes. These platforms are the digital equivalent of heroin if heroin always came with either nazi or bolshevik propaganda. They are entirely focused on the axe they rightfully have to grind the whole age verification debacle they are not seeing the bigger picture. The major social media companies are undermining the foundations of our societies for ad revenue and giggles. Keeping teens out is a huge step in the right direction.
- throwawayffffas 4mo agoI find the idea that someone would care about their privacy and choose to be on social media really hard to fathom. These things are personal data vacuums that infer everything there is to know about you, if you don't just give it to them.
- queenkjuul 4mo agoLmao yeah, bolshevik propaganda. Hilarious.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4mo agoBig tech is deathly afraid of these experiments having a good outcome.
- btbuildem 4mo agoCanadian federal govt just pushed thru a slew of similar legislation - absolutely unprecedented assault on privacy, tools for tracking everyone all the time, minimally constrained, giving broad leeway to a three-person unelected body to implement the actual details.
- bebe83939 4mo agoI am all for it. UK has a big problem with organized pedofile crime, and this may prevent it.
- proxyscore 4mo agoThere's no defending social media, not for adults, not for kids, ever. It's a toxic trap which will do absolutely nothing good for and to its users. Keep the kids away from it, doesn't take an Einstein reincarnate to realize that.
- dylan604 4mo agoThis is the slipperiest of slopes. I'm all for restricting social consumption, but absolutely against the current suggestions for age restrictions methods. The end goal is noble, the means of achieving it are sinister
- ilovecake1984 4mo agoSure, is HN social media?
- simondotau 4mo agoAccording to Australia’s rules, no.
- rahimnathwani 4mo agoHacker News is a social media site, but not according to the UK government. According to the UK government, YouTube is a social media site.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- enoeht 4mo agoCouple of Months latter kids will have vipe coded their decentralized sm version that's here to stay. When will politicians understand how and why the internet was build?
- mikgp 4mo agoWouldn’t this be an amazing outcome of the legislation and prove politicians understand exactly how and why the internet was built? I don’t think people have a problem with “social media” per-say, it’s a problem with algorithmic feeds controlled by a few giant companies with very little if any competition, showing countless optimized ads.
- manwithopinions 4mo agoThe EFF believes the ends (freedom) justify the means (access to everything good and bad for everyone). Governments are pragmatic, not fundamentalist. This article addresses the technological flaws in age verification, then says “but even if there were, broad restrictions on social media will inevitably limit access to lawful speech, and valuable online communities, and arts and culture.” If the EFF care about freedom above all else (a reasonable position) muddying the waters with half-baked age verification isn’t perfect arguments is just sloppy. Why does the freedom matter above all else? That’s what voters need to be convinced of.
- voakbasda 4mo ago> Why does the freedom matter above all else? That’s what voters need to be convinced of. Because without freedom, you cannot really have anything else. You are a slave. Is that really what you want to be? Or how we want children to be raised?
- nativeit 4mo agoI do believe social media should be verboten for younger people, although I believe it should be enforced by good parenting rather than legislation. That said, we live in a society, and sometimes that means our libertarian ideals don’t work on the large scale. I reserve judgement for the people of the UK, their government isn’t without its serious faults, but less regulation doesn’t seem to be the panacea Reagan and Thatcher sold it to be.
- markus_zhang 4mo agoJust ban all social media, no need for consent, no need for age detection BS.
- codelong888 4mo ago[flagged]
- Littice 4mo ago"Under-16 social media ban" sounds narrow. In practice it means building an age-checking layer for the whole web, then hoping it only gets used for children.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 4mo ago"This week, politicians in the UK pushed forward with plans to eviscerate privacy and free speech on the internet by announcing a ban on social media for users under 16 that is set to take effect in Spring 2027." Is "social media" the internet Does "social media", i.e., "Big Tech", preserve privacy or eviscerate it. "Internet privacy" is been in direct conflict with their "business model". They engage in sweeping data collection and mass surveillance of internet users to support invasive "personalised" ad services It seems like most people engaging in "free speech" on "social media" are not anonymous, not really interested in "privacy" In many cases, they "share" their every thought 40 ways to share information over the internet without age verification https://decss.zoy.org https://decss.zoy.org This is old and could be updated with more
- pbgcp2026 4mo agoC'mon ppl, nothing new. China, N. Korea, Iran, Russia ... to some extent Turkey. So what? Adapt. We've been there before.
- rich_sasha 4mo agoI'm frustrated with how the various internet freedom orgs have handled this over the years. The writing was on the wall for years - it's not the 90s anymore and some compromise on anonymity and verification is coming. Frankly for good reason - I think the social utility of Big Social is massively negative, and even more so for kids. That was the shot of orgs like EFF to help shape the debate in a good direction. Zero knowledge proofs, anonymity preserving age checks, good govt regulation on this etc. Instead they all dug their heels in, refused to give an inch or even engage in the debate. If you wanted anything other that a Toresque utopia then you clearly want Big Brother to keep tabs on everything, and you're probably a moron who thinks you have "nothing to hide". So they vacated the space while Mumsnet users came to the only logical conclusion: let's ban social media for kids, with whatever method comes to their mind. Scanning their ID, face scans, fingerprints connected to a government DB ran by the cheapest contractor - who knows how this will materialise. And I kind of can't blame them. The adults of internet privacy vacated the room because they said everyone else in the room is too stupid. So they left and left the stupid people in charge.
- roryirvine 4mo agoThe same applies to the social media services themselves. Evidence of harm has been building up over the last decade, so there's been ample opportunity for them to develop effective systems to reduce or mitigate the problems. Instead, they've chosen to do the opposite. And, if anything, that process has only accelerated over the past 2-3 years - firing moderation teams, amping up the algorithmic feeds, refusing to engage with regulators. Did they really think their behaviour would have no consequences?
- CrzyLngPwd 4mo agoProbably an unpopular view, but why not fix the issues with social media.
- Nippon_anzai 4mo agoThis is the best thing to do IMO
- globular-toast 4mo agoI really wish we could just pass "common sense" laws. Like, you just can't use addiction to make money, full stop. You can't use any kind of trickery in marketing, in particular anything trying to circumvent people's rational brain and preying on the weak animal brain underneath. Marketing and advertising would be gone overnight - good riddance -because anyone can write an honest advert. The problem with us is we get stuck in local optima and we just can't get out. We're like ants in a death spiral. It takes some enormous external shock to get us out, like a world war. Even a financial crisis or global pandemic isn't enough any more, unfortunately. Individuals just can't accept less and no leaders appear to be able or willing to explain to the concepts of global optimisation or long term plans etc. So we get stuck with shit on top of more shit.
- inigyou 4mo agoUntil it all collapses. You know, various historians have studied this. No society has ever avoided this collapse scenario. It's like the Great Filter. But in 2026 because of the internet we only have a handful of global-scale societies instead of a hundred thousand regional societies like we used to. The first one to collapse might just catch the whole world in its debris cloud.
- stranded22 4mo agoThis is the start
- timmytokyo 4mo agoBanning or regulating algorithmic feeds would be an excellent start.
- drawfloat 4mo ago“ But the social media ban does not stop there. The provision also requires internet service providers to limit the time kids spend online, and has rules about who can contact them online. These extreme rules will take decisions about using technology away from families and put them in the hands of government regulators. “ I’m not sure that “there are rules on who can contact children online” is “extreme” for anyone outside of hyper libertarian circles. The EFF needs to start engaging with actual real world, because it’s intransigence on the issues being caused by unfettered internet usage mean it is unable to prevent bad solutions being proposed.
- anthk 4mo agoOr you maybe need to start properly educating your children by limiting your own devices instead of harming the whole net sphere. Call your ISP and set restricted DNS' and ban any instalation of software on children's devices. Problem solved.
- drawfloat 4mo agoI don’t have kids, but I live in society.
- Planktonne 4mo agoAll the pro-freedom arguments ring hollow and insincere to the wider world. From an outside perspective, the tech industry/community has repeatedly demonstrated that it's actually very pro-surveillance and child exploitation. From that same outside perspective, another argument of 'hey, we have to combat all attempts at protecting children to avoid surveillance' just sounds like self-serving lies. You can argue that the tech world is not a monolith, but it looks like one from a wider societal perspective, and often the conflicting calls are coming from the same exact sources. Every AI company, for example, bleats about the potential harms of AI while chasing after them headfirst. If you want to argue against this kind of legislation, you need to repair a lot of lost trust first.
- duxup 4mo agoI feel like if there's a bad actor... this kind of legislation just ignores it / the problem. Meanwhile kids will still find ways to do what they wish online and it will be hidden... adults exposed to these same bad actors.
- Planktonne 4mo agoI don't think this legislation is perfect, but I think it's a response to the bad actors pretending for decades now that they were concerned about freedom while acting against it. This is the result of people no longer having any trust in people who claim to care for freedom while harming others; you can't keep drawing from a poisoned well.
- duxup 4mo agoI think it undermines the entire reasoning not dealing with the bad actors and reasonably questions what the actual intent is. Social media companies bad ... laws imposed by government on individuals who aren't the people doing bad things. That's absurd.
- Planktonne 4mo agoI agree, but it's a response to the first undermining: to a tech industry that insisted it could never be regulated without tyranny while at the exact same time supporting every social evil and tyranny. "We're not the bad actors!" doesn't cut it when half the people saying it absolutely are.
- guilhas 4mo agoA society whose individuals needs government laws to make good "choices" is probably doomed The only possible law is making bigco social media less addictive, and better controls for parents But maybe this is UK just exercising some soft power, since they have no tech to speak of
- inigyou 4mo agoThen we've been doomed since we banned children from buying cigarettes, or even further back, since we banned children from having sex with adults. Do you really think banning those things made society worse?
- cowboylowrez 4mo agoThere is nothing good on the internet for kids. If we ban kids from the internet this will all go away. Make a smartphone every bit as regulated as alcohol or cigarettes or sexual intercourse. If a parent is found providing their kids alcohol, cigarettes, sex, or internet, we have to hold them accountable and rehabilitate the kids from their traumatic experience. These parents deserve serious prison terms, and those victimized kids will need to be institutionalized as they are now traumatized for life (plus their parents are deservedly now serving decades in prison for child abuse). Why are we pushing our kids onto the internet? There is nothing there for them. Any politicians pushing for kids internet access are probably doing it for nefarious reasons in my opinion. The internet is not really all that safe for adults either, why are we pushing kids onto it?
- Eddy_Viscosity2 4mo agoBanning kids from alcohol, cigarettes, and sex sure did work. I can't think of a single kid I went to school with that did any of these things (and certainly not me). All those laws and rules were absolutely effective in preventing us as kids from doing them. /s
- cowboylowrez 4mo agoYeah but we can sanction the parents. If your friends at school were having sex with strangers for money and their parents were doing the pimping, society would like to have a word. Why is letting your kids sext with adult strangers any different? Is it because the only "pimping" you are doing is giving in to your brat nagging for an iphone?
- voakbasda 4mo agoI wonder if creating more laws designed to punish parents correlates with declining birth rates. Sure makes me think twice about having them.
- cowboylowrez 4mo ago
- manoDev 4mo agoHave you taken a look at kids nowadays? They look like fking zombies glued to their smartphones and wireless headphones. I go walk my dog, and not a single kid tries to play with it - only people of my age (40s) do. We’re raising a generation of completely emotionally detached robots. There’s something deeply wrong and unsettling, and it’s happening in plain daylight.
- duxup 4mo agoI'm around kids every day, they're a dynamic group. I see adults like you describe ...
- ddmf 4mo agoThis does seem to be more of an effort to bring digital ID in via a backdoor - the proposal is less "under 16 social media ban" rather "over 16 will need to provide id to use social media" I'd prefer that we had some standardised governmental endpoint that can authorise against a site for us, rather than use multiple individual methodologies to prove