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?

True. But that is not really a concern if you are not in the habit of posting illegal material that might warrant a prison sentence.

I'm not concerned that any of the mainstream political parties would present a risk of this nature. None of them are about to massively curtail our civil liberties as far as I can see. The far right parties are different, but I don't intend to hang around if they get into power in any case - frankly, Internet surveillance would be pretty far down my list of concerns in that scenario.

Well, that's fair enough. You're entitled to trust or distrust whoever you like.

I cannot find any info on how they are going to police and enforce this, but frankly the only way is via ID access to platforms (internet access via ID will be the next step).

It already is happening.

Feel there is some tinfoil hat stuff going on here 🫪

Such as, what do you feel comfortable with?

It's not about posting, it's about access to information. And the notion of legal/illegal is constantly changing.

Our civil liberties have already been curtailed on a massive, population wide scale, don't you remember? And the gov was partying 😁

What's your evidence for this?

To be honest, you sound like one of the tin hat brigade to me.

I feel there is some huge naivety going on here. Only a few days ago the government were talking about censoring media in the event of a ‘crisis’ . We also know thousands of people have been arrested for social media posts over the last few years including a good number who have subsequently taken the police to court and received compensation.

Lockdown? How is that linked to digital ID?

As for access to information, what do you currently feel you are being prevented from accessing?

I don’t mind if posters below just keep posting even if the gov has it linked but I’ll use a VPN

Fine, as long as there’s that option. And then if too onerous they get voted out.

Did you miss the ‘online safety act’? Or Ofom’s announcement last week?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj3l0e4vr0ko

If they're taking the police to court and getting compensation, that doesn't sound like evidence of a state that is curtailing the freedoms of its citizens?

Some people have rightly been arrested for their posts on social media. But I guess it might be frustrating for those who want to spread disinformation or incite violence with impunity.

You might want to research how China enforced lockdown if you think they aren’t linked.

Police are the state. They were compensated because their freedom was curtailed.

So certain content is being restricted for under 18s and for those who choose not to complete the age verification?

If you choose not to verify your age, then that's your free choice, I guess. Do you not think that protecting children from harmful information is important?

Thanks for this. A good reminder.

Of course police are the state. My point is that citizens still have recourse to challenge the state if mistakes are made. In a country where the state was actually trying to control you, you would have no such option.

You didn’t read the article then? News on Gaza and Ukraine was also being suppressed. And that is the BBC admitting it, not a more critical website.

There is an enormous difference between the status quo of the intelligence services being granted permission to monitor your specific internet habits where and when there are grounds to believe you are up to no good, and a scenario whereby much of the internet is censored and prohibited by default by the State, usage is monitored as a matter of course, and anyone found using methods to access that prohibited content, even if it is nothing more than factual news sites hosted elsewhere and therefore outside the jurisdiction of your government, is prosecuted and imprisoned.

This is where we'd inevitably end up with government that considers blanket bans and pre-emptive censorship as a proportionate response to content it can not restrict by any other simple means, because it's precisely where the internet has ended up in existing States where the government takes that approach.

You think Restore will be worse than Labour?
Restore is all about Freedom and Liberty.
They will repeal this if they can

Restore's "Libertarianism" is entirely performative and only applies to the rights of people they approve of. There isn't a hope in hell of this sort of legislation being rolled back by any government once its on the books, Reform and Restore included, because every government would find it far too convenient and it would also signify a watershed whereby the public would be meekly accepting State censorship, meaning this sort of thing would only snowball. It would inevitably end up in a bunfight between Government and the Courts, but as we are witnessing in the US, if the courts stand up to Right Wing despots, the despots simply destroy the court system, fill it with lackeys, and pursue the people who had the temerity to stand up to them in the first place.

Couldn't/Wouldn't happen in the UK due to "Democracy"? Well plenty of people thought the same about the US until they elected a disgrace of a human being President, and gave him and his criminal cartel of mentally subnormal deviants carte-blanche to trample all over perceived "rights" and norms, and debase his Office every single day. Despots don't give a single shiny shite about what is fair, just, or legal, because they'll just abuse the fact that democratic constitutions presume the public isn't stupid enough to elect criminals with no respect for the Law in the first place.

It's linked to curtailing civil liberties you mentioned, I just gave you one of the recent examples. It has already happened and it would be naive to think mainstream parties wouldn't do that. Tories did, Labour will do too, of course. It's not a problem at all.

It doesn't matter what I'm accessing, it's about the principle of democratic freedoms and the level of government interference into private lives. They can ban Plato or Socrates next year and will be able to control if I listen to Greek philosophy lectures on youtube and fine or imprison me for that. Orwell said it all ages ago, it's not even a new or extravagant idea.

People do not care much about democratic freedoms these days, it seems.

I did read it. The article stated that the content in question was restricted for those who had not completed the age verification process.

Of course, it isn't great if tech platforms introduce relatively crude measures for restricting content that might be unsuitable for under-18s, but it's their choice as to how they manage compliance with the law, and for adults who choose to verify their ages, the content will not be restricted in any case.

Well plenty of people thought the same about the US until they elected a disgrace of a human being President, and gave him and his criminal cartel of mentally subnormal deviants carte-blanche to trample all over perceived "rights" and norms, and debase his Office every single day. Despots don't give a single shiny shite about what is fair, just, or legal, because they'll just abuse the fact that democratic constitutions presume the public isn't stupid enough to elect criminals with no respect for the Law in the first place.

And he was so bad that they went on to elect Trump.

People should care. This is very much a Starmer push. Iirc Andy Burnham was against digital ID. Presumably Starmer's last hoorah before he’s ousted.

Is it disinformation to say that the words "sex", "man" and "woman" refer to biological facts?
Was it disinformation before April 2025?
Simple questions, innit? 😁