Parliament considers ban on social media use for under 16s

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https://www.joe.co.uk/news/uk-government-considering-banning-under-16s-from-social-media-464318

Australia have already announced a ban that should come in to effect around 12 months after the legislation goes through:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gzd62g1r3o.amp

I for one think this is a great idea. I know there are many that will disagree with me. It seems to be well documented at this stage just how damaging social media can be on young children and drastic measures are needed

Agree completely. Brilliant idea but not sure how it would be regulated as people just lie..

Yeah I agree too. But can't see how this will be enforced

Too hard to police effectively. Some parents would just sign up for accounts for their kids, then kids whose parents refuse are left out.
A better solution would be special smartphones for U16s, that only do maps, messaging (on specially designed non-encrypted app) etc. Any U16 caught by school or police with a non-approved phone loses it. Much easier to monitor.
Access to social media would be vastly limited that way, and all kids in the same boat.

I don't think it's a bad idea in principle, speaking as someone who was a teen at a time when it had just became affordable for most to have computers and internet at home (my parents would have a stroke if they knew some of the stuff we got up to), but how on earth would it be policed? There are so many work arounds I'm not sure how effective it would be.

I agree with not being sure how it would be policed. Hopefully there are some effective measures in place or enough parents comply with the legislation to normalise NOT having social media before the age of 16. It may even raise some awareness for those who do not realise how damaging it is.

I don’t think it’s a reason not to legislate against it though. It’s the same as alcohol though. Yes, you can obtain and consume it under the age of 18. Many of us did but society would frown upon parents who would let their teens get absolutely wankered on a regular basis at that age. Hopefully, the same will happen with social media in time.

I'm normally very libertarian but I think this is a great idea. It seems clear to me that we are currently raising a generation of morons glued to their phones. Adults can't handle the adictiveness of SM so there is no way that kids can. If parents (or kids) want to get around it, fine, up to them, but it might help parents like me to hold off giving DS a smartphone for a bit longer.

Too hard to police effectively. Some parents would just sign up for accounts for their kids, then kids whose parents refuse are left out.

Jail the parents then. Like you would for parents who gave their kids drugs.

Everyone likes the idea - no one likes the pain.

How would it be policed, would we put Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk in prison if they were not acting fast enough to enforce it?

I don’t support it. When my kid was bullied at school she kept in contact with other groups of friends through social media. This was a welcome break for her. The government are going to allow the awful bullying at school to continue and then cut off the main thing kids use to distract themselves from how awful school is.

I don’t think that’s down to us to solve 🙃
It’ll be interesting to see how Australia proposes to do it

I’m sorry your kid was bullied, that must have been awful!
From what I have read through, the ban will only apply to platforms such as instagram, snap chat, X and not things like WhatsApp. Your child would still have been able to contact friends from their smart phone and let’s not forget how much bullying is carried out online these days. Sometimes not having a phone is respite from this.
I hope your child is ok

It might be hard to do, and hard to police, but that doesn’t mean it’s worth a try. At the very least in the last month or so there has been so much more discussion of the issue which is great.
I know there are plenty of kids who will manage to get round it, and parents who won’t care, but there must be many families who would be so relieved to be able to say to their child “well no you can’t have Instagram, because it’s actually illegal”. And even if it doesn’t make law here - there still will have been a huge public discourse about it and many more people will be aware of the issues than they were before.

I think it’s a great idea and as an absolute minimum, parents can say to their kids, ‘“no, you can’t have (insta, Facebook whatever) because it’s against the law, I don’t care that Billy has it.” It’s much easier to shut down the pestering that way.

I agree in principle.

Ban smart phones for under 16s or require proper age verification and id for all social media.

Gen Z have been the canaries in the coal mines and had their brains fried. Let's save the next generation.

If it were up to me I would probably be this hardcore about it but I don’t think the majority would go for this. Banning social media for under 16s is at least a step towards.
Hoping that by the time DS reaches that age, it’ll be less normal to have one anyway!

I vote yes.
I actually have been thinking on phones that can only operate age appropriate software, including not access to the internet below certain age, plus access only to restricted age appropriate content, like BBC children version for kids over 13. Nothing else. Plus adding contacts should need a password approval from the parents.

No smartphones can be restricted but 'special phones' assumes everyone buys brand new for their kids. And prevents phones being shuffled round families.

I know a family where the DGPs like upgrading, the parents take the DGP old phones and the kids get the parents then the kids old ones get traded in.

It’s a good idea but I fear the cat is out of the bag.

Jail the parents? You can't be serious about that. We would have loads of teenagers left to fend for themselves and no workforce.

It would be like Lord of the Flies, but with more selfies.

Sounds like a performative policy which is great in theory but not enforceable.

One way - You would have to have a unique citizen identifier (so a national ID scheme) and the platforms would have to check a given identifier belongs to an over 16 with the state.

However, it seems a lot of ballache to replace parental responsibility. And as already mentioned, there will always be some numbnuts parents who will actively help their brood circumvent any rules anyway.

Besides, isn't it an article of faith amongst the social media barons that the free market should be allowed to solve everything ? Which rather means they have tacitly accepted the responsibility themselves. A £1,000,000 fine for every under 16 they are found to allow on their offering would concentrate minds very very quickly.

You've got to be prepared to be drastic if you want change.

Either ban the phones or bring in proper id that everyone has to use to access social media sites (at 16+). Being wishy washy won't change anything.

Australian here. The government is planning to make social media companies responsible for implementing technology to verify the age of the user. For this to be effective every single person here will have to have their age verified otherwise you could be an under 16 lying.

That’s going to involve either handing over personal details like DOB, address, driver’s licence number, etc to social media giants and expecting to keep it safe, or having some sort of facial ID. That’s bullshit.

The government is starting to realise that Australians don’t support this and adults don’t want to have to hand over personal details just to watch a video on YouTube, because they’re classing it as social media too.

Things like Discord, Roblox, etc will all have age bans. Not just the obvious social media.

The government has talked about banning VPNs in Australia.

Don’t get me started in the Misinformation and Disinformation bill that’s before parliament at the moment. Basically Australians will face punishment for saying anything negative about anyone online. We won’t be allowed to call our politicians a bunch of dickheads. That’s bloody unAustralian.

As far as I’m concerned they can fuck off with their nanny state bullshit.

Teenagers are sneaky. They’ll get onto social media if they really want to regardless of what the government says.

I would absolutely support this

Even if it is difficult to police, at least it normalises saying no as PP said.

I think it is properly bonkers to give smartphones to children. Adults can't really handle social media either, but at least it's up to them to give themselves a mental illness. Little kids have absolutely no chance against the massed forces of the attention economy algorithms.

Over the past 20 years we have essentially locked up our kids, to keep them safe. But we've locked them in their bedrooms and installed in there a portal to... all the predators in the world. It doesn't make sense.