Under-16s will be banned from using social media, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced.
Starmer says social media is making children unhappy, making it easier for bullies to abuse children, and is “designed to be addictive”. A ban would give children more time, security, and more freedom to grow up - as well as more opportunities, he adds.
“That is all any parent wants. They want to know that Britain will be better for their children, that they will get a fair chance,” the PM says in a speech in Downing Street.
Starmer adds that the government is “not prepared to compromise” on the safety and happiness of children - and that includes in the regulation and enforcement of this ban. He says the government has listened to and learned from countries like Australia, where a similar ban has already been introduced.
Social media is absolutely addictive and making people unhappy.
But how do you enforce this without removing anonymity?
Once again, they’re going the corporate/government friendly route of surveillance. Ban VPNs, age vefification, soon we’ll be required to use biometric checks to access the internet.
These chucklefucks will do anything other than attempt to solve the problem. Which is more education and help for parents while holding parents and the corporations accountable. But that would cost money rather than having lobbyists and donors fund them even more so 🤷♂️
It all comes back to capitalism.
First step would be to ban social media from using algorithm suggestions all together.
Maybe ban algorithmically-delivered content? So, for example, consider YouTube. The only way to get content would be to search for videos or to subscribe to individual channels. You can still have a user-curated experience, but that curation must be actively done by the user. This would at least prevent feed algorithms selecting for engagement and rage.
I would rather target the worst practices of social media companies in general, rather than try and keep kids from them. It’s not like adults aren’t harmed by this stuff either.
As I said, hold the corporations accountable. It was never about children in the first place.
This is my biggest issue with it.
Social media has become a blight on society on all levels. Not just children.
But, there’s a lack of education or push for children, and adults too, to be smarter online. They’re just instituting laws and legislation and pushing the onus on corporations to comply.
Sounds good at face value but doesn’t factor in smaller companies who are unable to afford the changes needed to comply (resulting in the pulling out of a region) or they institute dodgey 3rd party verification systems that will just on-sell your data.
Then, there’s the world of dodgey VPNs that kids and people have rushed to. Also, as other people have said, children have found work arounds for age verification.
So, what’s the point? What did we actually achieve? I sometimes defer to the old addage of never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. Sometimes I feel it’s more like naievity or good intenaions being controlled by malicious forces.
I don’t know.
What I feel though is that it just doesn’t feel like it’s truly about the children. If it is, there should be a whole lot more factored into this.
Instead it feels like a half baked plan being sold to us as being for the children.
It’s a moral panic being co-opted by those in power. (Ironically, many of those in power being predators themselves, especially here in the US where they’re a major political party 🙃)
Some I can think of off the top of my head:
Legitimate concern gets amplified to a moral panic and then legislation is quickly put forth but is never tested or thoroughly understood. And given that most legislation today is written by lobbyists…well 🤷♂️
I’m sure stupidity is a part of if, but it’s usually some genuine intention that then gets swept up and captured by malicious infrastructure.
That’s why I’m saying hold the parents and the corporations accountable. Peel back data collection and restrict algorithmic content altogether. Enforce/provide parental education for online technologies and children. Basically, pay attention to your kids, be interested in them and their lives. The infrastructure exists on these social media platforms to restrict and monitor access, as well as it exists at the router level and at the device level as well. It’s the parents who purchase the device and provide internet access. Would we be ok with in home governmental inspections on all of us so that kids can’t have access to a gun or alcohol? No, it’s up to the parent to protect their child from danger. Why is this any different? Why should we all give up our privacy?