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?

Is this Starmers last hurrah

Generally this is a good thing I think. TikTok and Snapchat have the ability to become highly toxic very quickly, and what I hear about the use of WhatsApp groups among kids is pretty bad too although like most of us I see it as a simple texting app and the only groups my ds is on are family ones.

YouTube I’m not so sure about- certainly plenty of the stuff on there is excellent and my son does watch some really good educational stuff. He only watches on his home computer (next to where I’m sitting normally) and it’s linked to my phone so I can see exactly what he’s watching and he polices himself perfectly. So it would be a shame for him to stop watching those things altogether imo.

I’m not keen on the idea tbh.

I have a 15 year old and he isn’t interested in most SM although he does use WhatsApp to keep in contact with friends and also YouTube which he uses for a few different things including watching channels dedicated to helping with exams/revision, is the ban going to stop kids accessing things like this?
My 13 year old and 10 year don’t have phones, they watch YouTube on our TV sometimes but our TV is in the family living room and so it is always overseen by an adult.

Teens will get around it anyway as in Australia and bad parents will continue to parent badly, a ban won’t change that.

I'd like to know the YouTube details too. How will anyone pass GCSE English Lit without access to Mr Everything English?
I suspect that while they will not be able to have an account they will be able to watch videos in a logged out state, which strikes me as being daft. If they have an account it's far easier to track what they watch!
I would prefer that they could have an account but can't upload videos.

I’m supportive but my child has taught themselves how to crochet on YouTube and my other child indulges a habit for junk modelling. These are educational and I want them to continue to access Rob Biddulph’s drawalongs

Same but with science videos.

Agree there is good stuff but there is also a lot of mindless rubbish that just encourages them to doom scroll… although not sure where doom scrolling comes into the thinking of this

Well surely they can add these educational videos to kids youtube which they are still allowed to use? Only difference is they won't see and Andrew Tate video straight afterwards

That's because they lack the knowledge and much of an ability.

Which is precisely why I say good luck and it still comes down to parenting and abdication of responsibility. Peer pressure isn't going away.

My kids don't use FB, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat. As long as WhatsApp is ok we are fine.

I just dont get the YouTube ban, I guess I will log on as me on their phones - they use it mostly for art tutorials and music videos.

The main thing here is about PARENTING, many parents throw the phones at the kids and do not have restrictions, supervision or even just talks about the dangers of the internet and weirdos on the internet and so on.

One of my kids is older but the younger one just got their phone, and i wonder how many parents actually check the y6 WhatsApp group. I do and I am pleased to see the kids policing themselves - one guy joined and was spamming the group as it was all the novelty and they said "dude stop spamming" and other times they tell each other off for swearing.

Ban it now and you will have all the same problems when they are 16.

Better to educate the bloody parents who do nothing about their children's phone use

I don’t think some teens getting around it, or some parents being lazy and slack is an excuse to not take a step like this.
The narrative around social media and children needs to be clear, it has significantly more negatives than positives for them and they need to be protected from it.
Hopefully the government banning it will help reduce some of the lazy parenting, they cannot simply convince themselves that SM is fine for their very young children anymore.
Hopefully in 10 years time it will be a complete outlier for a 10 year old to have access to social media.

Starmer was very clear and it will move at speed.

Anyone complaining that their kids are addicted - the parent could have stepped in to stop this at any time. I never understand people begging the government to parent their children as this is the slippery slope to giving away parental rights.

I don’t know how, or who, will be enforcing this; surely children will find a way around it very quickly.
Parents who don’t care what their children access will simply sign in for their kids.

Yes, this.

I can’t imagine my 15 year old niece will leave Instagram, Snapchat or Tik Tok without a massive fight, and she’s a lovely girl from a responsible family who will probably choose not to die on that hill. I really can’t imagine this making a huge difference.

I hope I’m wrong though, as it’s a good idea.

And it will be a binfire of legislation if he does that. Good legislation never does it's job if it's such a complex issue and it's rushed due to a leader being in trouble with the polls.

It will not work. It lacks detail and rests on parents. The parents who already fail to parent won't change.

The only way to make it really work is to punish the parents of under 16s.

But you could end up with 5 year olds watching some slightly adult GCSE Biology videos?

If I ruled the world I would prefer they can have an account but only watch videos from creators approved by parents. That would stop the 'try this, and this and this' suggestions from YT which leads them down some nasty rabbit holes.

I do realise that I will never rule the world and my idea won't work in practice (just like the new legislation).

The legislation is clearly not for the benefits of current 15 year olds.

I think it’s a bag of shite and disturbing.
The government don’t give a damn about our kids & the effect of social media.
It’s all about control. Thats what they want.
People need to parent their own damn kids -if you can’t afford kids and can’t be arsed to parent them then don't have them!!

I think YouTube is fine

Do DC use Facebook. DH uses it for his quite boring hobby groups

I disagree, it changes the conversation regarding social media going forward and it becomes more widely accepted that social media for children is a danger.

Not sure how you can say it lacks details when only an announcement has been made and obviously the full policy hasn’t been published yet.

I have DN'S in Australia, it hasn't worked at all. Good idea, just how do you police it?

MN’s Justine is on radio 4 now discussing this