To think we absolutely have to ban social media for under 16s.

[Bitethehandthatfeedsyou]

I just don’t understand with all evidence that we have to say how awful it is for young people why we’re not banning in for under 16s. I’ve not spoken to 1 parent who wouldn’t be in favour of it.

I do know it’s not a silver bullet and there is ann idea that young people would be penalised for big tech not taking responsibility for exploiting children.

Quite rightly smoking, vaping and alcohol are out of bounds for under 18s and arguably access to social media and a young age is as harmful / more harmful than any of these.

On a cynical note too, surely it would be a huge vote winner for whichever party goes about implementing it too.

I fundamentally disagree with you. As I have said in previous posts, teenagers especially young teenagers should not have access to social media regardless of whether there is a legal ban on it or not. Parents should remove all social media apps from their phones and explain to the child why there are doing it. Yes some children will find a work around. Yes some children will set up a burner phone. Of course they will. That’s up to the parents how to deal with this. However by removing the apps and setting up proper parent control on the phone, removing phones from bedrooms and stopping teenagers relying on phones all the time, most children will benefit.

To take your drinking analogy, not ALL under 18 year olds are down the park drinking alcohol. And to take the analogy even further, the equivalent of not banning social media at all would be opening pubs for 13 - 17 year olds to go and get pissed in a free for all… which essentially what social media is. Kids under 16 aren’t sensible enough to navigate it. You can still teach them sensible use, but not until they are older

Or buying teenagers hip flasks because they might cut their lip on a bottle of vodka when in the park.

We'll have to agree to disagree then. You will never get young people off social media in my opinion - the genie is long gone out of the bottle. You can't get the parents off social media (oh, the irony of having this debate on social media) so you won't even win the argument with most of them.

Yes, this exactly! I think it’s a cop out to simply say “oh well, that ship has sailed so 🤷‍♀️”

There is no political will to do this, because our Government is scared of Trump and his social media cronies. Our kids are the victims.

I have to say that in my London borough there is now a WhatsApp group for smartphone free childhood for pretty much every state secondary school. So there is definitely some very strong parent activism going on. At some point, No10 will have no choice but to listen.

@Araminta1003 there is already scope for schools to be phone free - if parents want a school to be phone free then that can be raised with the school and opinions asked for and taken from there.

the Government will not I suspect get involved because their is no easy solution no easy way to deal with this unless parents are on board and for every parent who wants it you are going to find one who does not.

Education is key here both for parents and for the children - a magical switch doesn’t suddenly go off at 16/18 etc and make them completely capable instead a gradual education process and maturing tends to occur.

@Tiswa - of course children need to be educated. However, the older they are, the more likely they are able to understand and think critically. It will also depend on each child’s maturity.
However, Governments have always tended to protect children from harms, be that drugs, alcohol, peadophiles, inappropriate film content with age rating etc etc.
A lot of the social media sites are not regulating content in an age appropriate way and the entire internet is arguably a massive safeguarding risk for children. Kids mental health has deteriorated massively since the widespread use of the smart phone and hours of internet use.
The difficulty is that the internet is also at the same time an incredibly learning tool with huge amounts of important information.
Leaving the policing of online access to parents alone, is negligent. It needs to be a coordinated effort from social media companies, Governments and parents, all working together, in an optimum way.
We have thousands and thousands of children with mental health issues and screen addiction and many have seen content that is completely not age appropriate and plenty are the victims of online bullying and grooming.

So I think at this point the parent activism is way beyond banning phones in schools and is demanding proper regulation by policy makers and social media giants. Of course, if we can get devices themselves that ban anything age inappropriate that would be a win win, but not sure if that really is workable?

As I said in the original post my DC are older so unfortunately I do feel like for their generation it does feel too late but also it feels like their generation should act like a cautionary tale for the younger ones. My DC school has introduced 'brick' phone only to bring into school which is great news.

IRL I haven't spoken to 1 parent who wouldn't support a social media ban - this petition has 161,000 signatures. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700086

And that is the problem I am not sure it is workable. All of the things you say alcohol/films/cigarettes the offence is in the selling at home these things aren’t an offence parents can and do override them

my view is that it is easier to try and get them to regulate content then have rules as to the age sign up which can be bypassed.

we could have an age limit on posting videos but dear god parents overrule that too

I would be supportive of a Government initiative really focussing for parents and children the dangers of social media

schiols are starting to roll out apps that do control these things but I have seen threads on here and posts on Facebook that hate this idea too.

I don’t think anyone can deny there is an issue but more that there isn’t an easy answer and I am not convinced it is one that the state can solve

This isn't in any way "simple".

How do you propose levying fines on companies and sites which aren't even based in your country and not subject to your laws?

The only way to prevent them being accessible is to ask ISP's to blanket block access to foreign sites, that's the sort of State censorship practiced in places like China and has absolutely no place in any free and open Democracy. If you think Government would only use this power to restrict access to SM sites for under 16's then I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.

It really is. Companies selling goods and services in the UK need to comply with local laws or they won’t be able to operate.

It really isn’t because even if you do require ID etc all it takes is a parent deciding they want their child to have it and sign up for them. Use an older sibling, use someone else’s id.

all the ways under aged people have been getting things for years.

then where is the line with posting children on them - if under 16s are banned should parents be posting pictures online of their children (mine was adamant that as she wasn’t going to post anything of herself due to safety then I wasn’t allowed either which she was right) but how many are going to follow that

then in the UK has a rule then somewhere else doesn’t VPNs can be used to access it - and I suspect many of us use VPNs

Also @ImAChangeling wjereas it is illegal for someone to sell my daughter alcohol is isn’t illegal for me to give her it in my own home

The censorship question is interesting.
The far right has long since realised that the internet is unregulated and that is pretty much where they are recruiting the youth, including on YouTube. Bang in the algorithms, I am not sure where I stand on the censorship question anymore.
It is very very easy to manipulate young people online. Questions of “free speech” are far from simple when it comes to the internet and algorithms and unfettered access. Couple in the fact that the status quo appears entirely asleep and is not doing enough online, it really is more of a threat to democracy to do nothing, than to intervene in a moderate way.

This. Why do people expect everyone else to parent their children?!

We should censor and regulate the internet far more than we do for everyone

l

https://nya.org.uk/ukyp/youth-select-committee/

https://nya.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/hc-999-youth-violence-and-social-media-online.pdf

“The final report calls for a multi-layered response to youth violence, from stronger regulation of social media – pressingfor tech companies to be transparent about their algorithms, and for the government to conduct and publish an evaluation of the measures they currently have in place, to introduce platform mandates to prioritise user safety. It sets out a range of recommendations and actions for the Government and relevant authorities from investment in early intervention, media literacy education and the need for universal open access youth services. “

On the whole vaping question, we are also known as THE country where public health agencies specifically encouraged vaping.
People need to be careful. Often things are spouted as we are a free & liberal country etc (all true), but there are people behind all of this manipulating and getting rich over it, at the cost of our own people and young. Tech companies have made a ton of money out of data and algorithms and advertising.
Using algorithms on children, for example, is not safe. They have a duty towards our children. Most of these companies do not even pay sufficient tax here for us to use to neutralise the harm, it is all pretty outrageous really. Our only option is to insist that they comply with laws and set those laws at a moderate level, all things considered.

Yes, some parents will always allow access and there will always be a way around things. However, we do regulate alcohol and cigarettes for a reason and if they and drugs were more freely available, far more children would use these. We try and stop the peer pressure to use harmful things, for a reason, and we educate on the potential harms. Same applies to social media content.

It requires regulation, question is how much, how best to do it, simply relying on parents is not good enough. Companies and the Government need to step up. It is pretty much a crisis amongst some of the young.

@Araminta1003 thsnk you it was an interesting read and I agree with its sentiments that it is the content that should be regulated rather than who uses it and recognising that an out and out ban for under 16 is neither particularly enforceable and removes some of the positive benefits

I do feel that platforms should take far more responsibility for what content is online and what content is automatically shown as well and it is a very good first step at dealing with what is going on

No.

You don’t think content in social media and internet should be regulated?

Correct.

Do you support a ban then or do you just think any content can be uploaded

I'm opposed to most forms of censorship.