Why do people want teens on social media??

[theprincessthepea]

I have a teen.

Today I told her that by the time the ban comes into affect when she is 16, it won’t make a difference to her life. But it will affect my toddler, and I’m happy that he will be growing up during a time where social media will be banned for children and young teens.

What I realised is that there are so many parents against the ban.

I see it every day. I was the last parent (out of my DDs friendship group of 6 girls) to give her a smart phone and allow her on social media - mainly because I was aware of what it’s like, and I witnessed my friend abuse MSN and Bebo back in the day and end up with older guys and pervs - that’s another story. But I remember a parent (DDs friends mum) telling me “I’ve set up a Snapchat for my daughter” (there were in year 5).
I asked her “why”
she said “I was told it’s good for them to socialise”

WTF!? AIBU for thinking that a lot of the work will go into convincing the public and parents that social media is bad. Just like we had to convince the public that smoking is bad.

If the amount of exploitation, low self esteem, online bullying, literally having an online account that is borderline only fans when you are a minor, whilst mum and dad think you study and love school (me and my daughter are super open about socials, she might have an account I don’t know about - but this is the point - us parents don’t get to protect our kids when they are in a virtual world that could be harmful).

Anyways that’s my rant. I’m all for the ban. Good luck with them implementing it. But I think we will be in a better place 10 years later (if the multiple crisis don’t get to us first).

Im also all for educational videos - but I don’t think this falls under this. As I do tell my DD to find an appropriate video when she’s stuck for revision.

Sorry I didn't rtft but where is this info from? The regulations are not published yet.

I cannot see any mention of "ban on setting up SM accounts" in the official fact sheet
The wording is "From Spring 2027, under‑16s will no longer be able to use certain social media."
"Use" is a general term that may include pretty much any access.
The fact sheet also reads that adults will have to provide their data.

I wonder what Mumsnet are thinking about this? They can't come out and say they are against the ban (can they?) but having to ID to use Mumsnet would massively affect their audience.
It would cut down on bad faith actors and trolls of course, but I wouldn't be here to see that myself either.

Agree. I think we will all look back and wonder what the hell we were thinking. And I think in future years there will be even more stricter laws and age limits.

It doesn't stop anyone from hacking. Also facial recognition doesn't always work. Adults may look younger, kids older. They're going to end up with digital ID.

Societies only function when they believe in the same things - even if they are fictional like the rule of law, limited companies, countries, religion (and these are all made up by people).
You need to regulate, of course. Stupid people doing stupid shit all over the world, from the Taliban to the pedophiles - people are not innately good.
You’re either believing in different things and fighting or believing in similar and cooperating.

Banning YouTube for kids will bring on two things - YouTube improving and cleaning the content for children, or a child friendly video platform will replace it. We cannot just say oh the occasional disgusting video on there is fine as long as we get the educational ones. You have to ask for better to get it.

in other words, it will not be effective. There's numbers that indicate most kids in Australia still have access to SM.

In some cases they regulated by self harming

I wont be either. This law will kill the internet. I wonder if mumsnet HQ will respond?

The whole sen argument for smartphones is such a red herring. My dd is autistic and they hadn’t been invented, but we went to restaurants, did activities, lived and she self regulated by other non screen based activities

Yes but it involves effort, @hahabahbag, and it's so much easier to just plonk them down with a device and produce some psychobabble about how it's doing them good

FWIW I'm another who dislikes state intervention in what should be private, but with the damage being caused it's got beyond that and "guidance" around parenting is never going to reach those who simply can't be bothered

That said, and with the difficulties of policing, I'm not convinced it'll ever amount to much more than a grabby headline, so in the end it may come down to the gradual realisation - already happening in many cases - that lobotomising kids with screens really isn't the answer

Your thinking is all over the place. Unfortunately there are far too many 'other parents' who do fuck all to protect their own children from social media, and it has had horrific consequences for some families who have tried to protect their children. That's why state intervention is now needed.

The world has changed in the ways you describe because too many people have stood back and done nothing to stop those harmful changes happening. So people decide to do something about it and all you can say is "there's no going back"? You'll be right if you just accept it all as inevitable. Well, you do you. There are a lot of extremely concerned parents and families who are willing to try something to make a better, safer world for their children.

And those companies? They get away with "lack of safety and accountability" because parents like you don't tell them 'no' loud enough.

Kill the internet? Most ridiculous thing I've read today. Yeah, I mean, no adults use the internet on a daily basis...

Look, I just don't want (and I'm sure you don't either) 1984 to happen in this country. It does in others.

I don't believe you should control information for adults because of the very fact that someone needs to control it. And you can bet that someone who rises to the job is probably the very person you don't want for the job. Life is messy, you can't have freedom without loosing control.

And I would never trust any of these verification companies to actually delete anything. Every selfie or I.D will.be stored and sold. You'd be an idiot to think your picture will be deleted. Selfie to log into mumsnet will mean your picture or I.D linked to your account.

This law will mean every adult will.have to submit selfies on a daily basis to use the Internet. Every site where you can engage in communication with another person falls into the remit. Have you read the proposed law?

Perhaps not kill it, but I think a large proportion of adults will stop using the internet as they don't want to show ID. So older adults probably, and ones who are sceptical of these changes. In other words, how to create online "forums" that only have 1 viewpoint.

Kill the internet and return things to offline conversation though? That will be too much wishful thinking perhaps.

Over 6 billion people—roughly 73% of the global population—use the internet every day. Of course this new law isn't going to kill the internet. Absolute bollocks.

From the fact sheet:

"We plan to use the same model for a social media ban as Australia. Their model included platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and X. "

The Australian model imposes a duty on social media companies to only issue accounts to those 16 and over. It does NOT prevent those under 16 from accessing youtube (for example) as an un-logged in user. Or from accessing it via the family TV that is logged in using a parents account. If you are not logged in you cannot post content and it is MUCH harder to access inappropriate and damaging content - which at the end of the day is what the 'ban' is supposed to achieve.

How social media companies age-verify their users will be up to them. The fact sheet says that OFCOM will come up with a list of acceptable methods, but the implementation will be down to the social media companies themselves.

Well, in that official fact sheet, they say "We plan to use the same model for a social media ban as Australia. Their model included platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and X." It's not especially conclusive and easy to follow, when you begin with "We'll have what they're having".

And they call it 'social media', but then start talking about YouTube - which is television, not social media; so they're banning some social media (maybe all? They haven't mentioned whether certain currently-established less-popular platforms are included) but they're also banning some television - or will it be all of it, except things like iPlayer and ITVx (which also include some content that is very much adults only)?

So if we take them at their word that YouTube will indeed be banned for U16s, does that include Rumble, Vimeo, DailyMotion and all the other many platforms where you can upload and watch video content - or will the kids just have to move to one of those; or wait for somebody to set up a new one if those are all blocked too? What about other sites that can't just be categorised simply, but which allow multimedia and many different kinds of content?

What about Reddit? That's a cesspool too - and extremely mainstream and popular - but I haven't seen a single mention of it in any of the reports. Then what about Quora? There's loads of extremely inappropriate content on Wikipedia too - just because it's presented in a matter-of-fact style, it doesn't mean that it's suitable for minors. In fact, you only need to go on Google to find EVERYTHING - lots of great stuff, lots of neutral stuff and lots of extremely harmful stuff. We'd need to ban Google and every other search engine. Where does it end?

Will we end up with the whole internet banned for under 16s/18s - possibly with a few approved sandboxed sites, like they do in China? It reminds me of the time it went viral that a school in Sussex auto-blocked its own school website as unsuitable for their students, because of the last three letters of their county name.

This all just smacks of Fr Ted & Fr Dougal standing nervously in the street with their sign saying "Down with this sort of thing!"

The internet is a lot more than social media (which many adults do not use anyway). You think people are going to stop online banking or streaming netflix because they have to verify their age to access X? Give over.

Most people who are parents of teens now will not be old enough to have had access to social media when they themselves were under 16. This can lead in some cases to an ignorance of the dangers. (Though in other cases it probably leads people to see SM as more dangerous than it really is.)

And there have always been parents who think children should be treated just like adults. Showing 18 certificates to their 8-year-olds etc. Ironically such adults are probably themselves rather immature and childish.

You missed the bit where the law says we will also have to submit weekly DNA samples and have RFID chips implanted in our arses before we are allowed to play Angry Birds.

You need to extrapolate - it starts with banning kids. Where does it end? Who has your data. Companies spend fortunes getting your data, now they get it for free.

Once the infrastructure is there, it's not going to magically disappear if you change your mind.

The ban will affect all sites where you can talk to other people. It includes mumsnet. This will be the start of mission creep. Next will be "look the ban isnt working. You will all need a digital I.D to use the Internet so your use can be monitored so we can stop kids using social media" and people like you will say "thays fine, think of the children"

Have you read the law? It means exactly what I said.

How social media companies age-verify their users will be up to them. The fact sheet says that OFCOM will come up with a list of acceptable methods, but the implementation will be down to the social media companies themselves

If so, @SadiraOfTyr, then even leaving aside the issue of irresponsible parenting there won't be a hope in hell of this working - not least because the cost of any fines will be eclipsed by the ongoing profits to be made

As always the devil's in the detail, and while the push factor may be worthwhile it remains to be seen whether this will become more than a headline