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

It’s really funny that boomers think they’ll be able to enforce it. There are numerous ways to break this law in about 3 minutes and you best believe the kids know how

Another good reason to have a national i.d. card like in some other countries.
If there was a unified form of identification that everyone had, that could need to be used as proof of age.

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.

I’m fine with this if that’s the quid pro quo of having under 16s protected

Frankly the internet giants know shitloads about me already (and anyone who thinks otherwise is naive).

Even if it’s hard to police & people lie, it’s still a great idea! The fact it’s banned might make parents & children realise it’s absolutely awful for children. My child would definitely not want to do something that was banned (although she’s only 8 now, I expect this to change!)

I agree, Roblox is apparently particularly rife with predators!
If I had to hand over personal ID to keep
social media, I would just delete it anyway.

I think banning under 16’s will just make it more appealing to them. They want to know what’s going on that they can’t take part in. I think we should hold the owners of these platforms more accountable for the content they allow rather than punishing young people. There are many under 16’s that can use social media appropriately and in fact it is a lifeline for some. My daughter who is asd has relied on it to be able to connect with people as she struggles face to face

So don’t give your children a phone. You’re free to make that choice. Just like I chose to give my child one when she started high school and I locked it down with parental controls. I also have parental controls over her phone account. I’d rather teach her how to responsibly and critically use the internet than to keep it from her and then let her free on it at 16yo.

Yes it would at least make parents think twice. I'm so pleased the tide is changing and can't wait for tech to catch up. My DC has a dumb phone but would love to be able to give them a touchscreen, without the internet and social media at their fingertips!

Although I'd say the vast majority of children aged 11/12 have WhatsApp, and the age limit on that is 13... So let's see how it goes.

It would need a shift of mindset to move it into the abusive, not acceptable parenting category for it to work.

Look back. Smoking, smacking, all these things that were once accepted and are now not.

People will realise how damaging it is, then will shift to supporting a ban. Until the harm is apparent the majority won't care.

I’m not a boomer.
Also made an argument further up thread about enforcing it.
It’s also bloody easy to get around under 18s consuming alcohol but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a law surrounding it. At the very least, parents who allow their children unfettered access to social media at a young age will be frowned upon in the same way they would be if they let their 15 year old get drunk on a regular basis. It’ll take time to change attitudes but this is a good start.

Australia is thinking of banning VPNs? I saw how tyrannical the country was during covid and now they’re banning the net (essentially) and important tech tools like VPNs. What a place.

I agree.
Whatsapp groups were how my shy DD started making friends. Without them she'd have stayed isolated.

It's not just the content though. It's the addictive nature / pressure it puts on kids to be always online, and it's the fact it's stopping kids from doing other, healthy things like outside time, in-person socialising, family time.

From a previous post I understand Whatsapp is not included

You can give them a smartphone using parental controls, just make sure they never turn 13!

I think whatsapp, X, bluesky, telegram, snapchat, tiktok...etc are all too high risk and a hot bed of bullying and exploitation.

Neither of my teens have smart phones, they have a nokia 3330 type thing that does calls/texts.

I've told DD who is in yr 11 that i may let her have a smart phone when she goes to college, but there will be rules on its use.

Yes. It’s part of the Mis/Dis information bill. That way if you call someone a dickhead wanker who has shit for brains they’ll be able to identify you and punish you. A VPN would stop that.

It’s almost like the current left wing federal government want to be voted out at the election early next year, then we’ll have the right wing party doing even more restrictive things to us, and destroying the environment.

How would that work?
Jails are over crowded anyway .

I'm not a boomer. I developed a social media platform (we called it web 2.0 then) in 2007. I understand social media so well I had stopped using it by 2014, as had almost all my contemporaries.

The thing to lock up is the phones, not the websites. Phones for children need a governor and this is certainly technically possible. Jailbreaking a governed phone is also possible, and you'd have to make that illegal for under 18s and take it very seriously, but it actually is both technically possible and enforceable to do this.

Putting photo id on websites is a transparent bid to control speech, and I would vote against it. But that's just one proposed method. There are numerous possible ways to protect children. I really believe we need to start thinking of them, and not let this problem be used as a trojan horse to sneak in speech controls or political suppression of adults.

Boomers are the ones creating these insane laws, they’re woefully out of touch.

What parents and their children do is between them. Allowing governments to do things like this is a very slippery slope.

But what would count as proper age verification? An id card? Who would sign that? Someone busy?

A survey I saw that showed the majority of teen kids had tried to circumvent parental controls etc (about 75% had tried) also showed only 25% were successful in actually doing so.

At the moment loads of kids have unfettered access with no controls so at least their parents will make it a bit harder for them.

Putting photo id on websites is a transparent bid to control speech, and I would vote against it. But that's just one proposed method. There are numerous possible ways to protect children. I really believe we need to start thinking of them, and not let this problem be used as a trojan horse to sneak in speech controls or political suppression of adults

Completely agree with all of this

Also to be fair to boomers they did actually invent the internet! 😂

I would support this.