Your thoughts on banning social media for under 16s

[OnNaturesCourse]

A topic I've been hearing a lot about on the news lately and it's got me thinking.

How do you feel about a possible ban on social media for under 16s?

(I know it has been said it won't be happening in the UK now but I found the topic thought provoking...)

YABU - it's a silly idea
YANBU - it's NOT a silly idea.

It’s a great idea.

Sadly though, there’s a whole generation now ruined because of social media.

It’s very sensible.

Should've been done 15 years ago.

I'm delighted.

I’m for it. Difficult to enforce. Still for it.

It’s a brilliant idea. Hard to make the change, but it would be so good if we could.

I think that lets the platforms off the hook tbh. If under 16s aren't legally allowed on, then social media platforms don't have to manage content. It will only work if you have to start providing ID to sign up.

I don’t understand how it would work in practice. Would everyone be required to sign up with their government ID to verify their age for social media? Personally I wouldn’t trust Meta with that. And surely there are very easy workarounds such as VPNs or using a proxy server to get around bans if teens want to.

There are real harms with teens and social media but I haven’t seen a realistic way to age restrict it yet.

There's always a way round it like putting in a fake date of birth. Pointless really.

I’m not for it personally. The true issue is the platforms and bad parenting, not the users at large. I also wonder about the implementation and what identification a teen will have to provide to META etc. in order to create an account when they turn 16.

There are arguments for it of course but I don’t think a blanket ban is particularly necessary. However I am interested for the results in years to come when teens get on socials for the first time at 16 and what they choose to use their accounts for.

They should have never had access to SM in the first place.
I'm all for it but I can't see how it can be implemented.
Kids are smart, they'd find a workaround for everything to do with computers.
And also how could this apply to all countries? Because I think it's easy enough to pretend you log in from a different location?
I would say they'd need a sanitised limited version to get used to the environment of social media and learn how to stay safe. A bit like learning to cross the road. As a child, You need to do it safely until you are trusted to do it alone.

I agree there are myriad problems but really, doing nothing when there is clear harm is not acceptable to me. Have you talked to a girl between 10-16 recently? They are being heavily marketed to on SM by same age influencers, it's grim and uncontrolled.

I’m all for it

It's a great idea but not workable in practice. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc is already 13+ and to bypass it you just put in a different birth year. There are no other checks because how can there be on someone legally a child without ID?

That then begs the question that to create an online social media profile you'd need to show your government ID and have that linked to your real life name, address etc which most adults would not support.

So, as always, it's on the parents and so far, so shitshow on that one.

I’m 100% for it
Parents should be fined if their children are found to have social media.

A lot of social media don't (or didn't last time I checked) 'allow' users under 13 but many seem to be on there before that anyway, with their parents' knowledge.
And I imagine many others do things their parents wouldn't know how to prevent.

It would be interesting to know how they'd police this. I'd be in favour generally but not sure it's workable.

I think the problem is with social media - and specifically with the algorithms they use to show you content that is most likely to rile you up and keep you hooked - than with the age of people using social media.

These algorithms tend to push content that you either completely disagree with, to get you arguing, or which you are with, but it's a bit more extreme. This gives you a dopamine hit and keeps you online. It creates a situation where it promotes two extreme opposites. It creates divisiveness and conflict. It's bad for adults as well as teenagers.

It's the algorithms that need to be banned. Maybe banning advertising on social media sites would force them to have a different business model so that they wouldn't use the algorithms.

The horse has well and truly bolted.

Whats needed now is proper parenting. Far too many people give their youngsters unmonitored access to the internet in general.

People need to take responsibility for the kids. Yes, it’s a pain when you’re getting the “but everyone else’s mum…” hassles and even more so when even other parents comment that you’re too strict, but parenting isn't meant to be something where you just opt out of the hard bits.

Although a large part of the problem is that adults don’t have appropriate use of it so don’t then teach that to their offspring.

I got called ridiculous and a dragon on here once for how strict I was with my older kids phones and internet usage. They’re all left uni/at uni age now and they’ve all been encouraging that I’m stricter still on the younger ones because of how bad the internet can be.

A great idea in theory, but in practice kids will just put the wrong date of birth in and not tell their parents.

It's a parenting issue really, some parents need to be more clued up on how to monitor their children's phone usage.

Grabs popcorn 🍿

Those tantrums are going to be epic!!!

Hi OP,

Hope you don't mind us popping our head round the door to let you know that Josh MacAlister MP has written for us about his Bill on safer smart phone/social media use for kids - and he's keen to hear from Mumsnetters about the measures he's proposed. You can read his piece and share feedback here.

Thanks,
MNHQ

Firstly, it won't be in any practical way enforceable. And the idea of fining parents for breach is ridiculous. Honestly if that was legally possible don't you think the courts would have done that for much more serious crimes!

The law would bring about a secure place for parents to base their decision. It would quasi regulate the material as the understanding would be under 16 won't be on it.

It is part of the solution, the other parts would also need introduction. Better education, training available free and accessible to parents. To secure behavioural change you have to prioritise the current 5 year olds and do what you can for those already on social media.

I’m so glad I didn’t grow up in an era of bullying incidents and then these being filmed.

As much as each future generation tends to be more affluent materially than the last, I really do think Gen Z/Gen Alpha have had it hard in some ways because of the challenges that social media present that us Gen X - ers - even though we only had 3 TV channels - were spared from

I think it’s a bad move, kids are being bullied at school and no one cares, teachers ignore it, parents are too busy. Your child is more likely to be sexually assaulted or beat up at school than meeting someone weird over the net. With the ban kids can’t even chat to other kids online and find some solace. They are being completely isolated.

Australia has just passed this law. However there is no detail on how it will work. It does say in the law that ID cards can’t be used.