Today’s Social Media Ban Announcement: Discussion

[ByeByeTikTok]

I haven’t seen a thread for today’s expected ban on social media for Under 16s so thought I’d start one. If there already is one pls link and I’ll get this deleted.

What will it likely include?
What won’t it include?
How do you and your kids feel about it, especially if they’re already using it?
Will you follow it, and when?
Will people try to get round it?

What agenda?
The extreme far right?

Get a grip.
Socialism want total control over the population

Except we aren't suddenly banning alcohol/smoking from that group, they've never been allowed it.

If we suddenly banned smoking for everyone, the government would be expected to provide smoking cessation support I imagine.

Edited to add: we're talking about whether support should be provided, not the ban itself.

There’s no evidence that this will happen.

Where is the laugh reaction when you need it 😂

Where exactly have government stated that a digital ID will be required to access social media?

Age verification software tooling has had extensive testing and is insanely accurate including now prevention of deepfakes / AI generated content. It is used already across many platforms for adult content and neither the platform, nor the age verification platform hold any personal data of the user.

The only people who should be policing kids internet access is their parents ffs.
We don't need a nanny state, we need to just parent our children ie saying No, not shoving them in front of screens from birth and participating in their daily lives.

This is just a political power move so Starmer can say he's taking action.

To what exactly?

Smoking was not always illegal for under 18s, it was a proactive decision to change it and raise the age.

Not according to the scientists at that (seemingly non-partisan) site. And what’s most relevant is the benefits and harms of this policy, which we don’t have at all. We could have if we waited to see the Australia effects but we’re only a few months in.

Ok, fair point. Still not comparable, for the reason i stated. And the govt do provide smoking cessation support, so why would providing support for people struggling with this ban be so radical?

But they aren’t parenting. That’s the point. Soooo many parents don’t give a shit or are completely unaware of the danger and damage.

But then do we ban everything that poor parents have access to? Processed food & video games for example?

It was all over the news a few days ago in reaction to the events in Belfast - you might want to start by looking at the broader implications of the ‘online safety act’ bearing in mind the use of words such as ‘hateful’ to describe speech is subjective and open to manipulation.

And can change with whoever is in power.

Maybe the fact that they are going to the lengths of taking this action shows just how harmful social media can be for kids. That’s the point - like smoking and alcohol etc, it is the message that it sends.

I mean if you scroll back a few pages you’ll see a poster talking about the impact that TikTok has had on her 8 year old niece. An 8 year old should be nowhere near TikTok and if some parents don’t realise this then yeah, action is required.

I am not sure how it's going to work.

Are they going to delete all the accounts of the U-16s currently on SM? Or just not allow new sign-ups?

If YouTube is going to be included, does that mean that YouTube will only be accessible by age verified login with no open access? Or will you still be able to watch videos but not post or comment? If YouTube isn't included, doesn't that just mean that content creators targeting kids will just focus more on YT than TikTok?

What does it mean for "family influencers" and "kidfluencers"? Are they going to be able to post content that their kids cannot access? Or will they be banned altogether? This is going to be fiddly for providers to delete all media featuring kids- what if the kids in question have now grown up?

What will be done about parents simply using their own ID to sign their kids up, as already happens with U-13s?

I do agree with one of the government minsisters the tech companies have had a lot of time to put something in themsleves.

I also agree too many parents are to unaware and too lax about access.

However - not sure this is the answer will depend on the details - and honestly with my youngest no being 17 not directly affecting out kids.

It was parents who campaigned for the change. This is a case of politicians actually listening to the public.

It wasn’t just campaigning for this method was it? I’ve heard some parents put forward other methods that don’t impinge on liberty so much

You will never be able to ban children from social media. Never.

Many parents are lax, because their children’s friends’ parents are lax… It is exactly the type of thing you can deal with by saying actually we are making it illegal because it is that bad.
Similar to making car seats the law. We still see people who have their child at the front seat unsafely, but now most of us will think this is really poor judgment rather than copy them.

the ONLY way this can be enforced is if we ALL have digital ID.....If that's what you want then fine....welcome to China where your freedoms can be taken away very easily

"Socialism" keeps being blamed in this thread, presumably by people who, for some baffling reason, still believe Starmer's Labour is in any identifiable way "Socialist".

It's Authoritarianism, which transcends both Right and Left. The people actually operating the data-harvesting entities desperately trying to convince government to adopt their tech in all facets of public life, do you genuinely think these people are Socialists?

Main story in the Metro today was a bereaved father saying the measures are rushed and address the wrong things. He seems to think a big opportunity to do effective regulation is being missed becuase of a political desire to announce something eye catching.