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.

Thanks, I'll have a look at Australian regulations though ours may be different, they only say "model", not particular details.

If you are not logged in it is MUCH harder to access inappropriate and damaging content

It's exactly the opposite.

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.

Yes, it's authoritarian government control AND corporate harvesting. Our state is merging with techno bros, the state helps them do business, they help the state control the plebs. Isn't it nice.

No, I haven't read the 'law' - because it doesn't exist. The government proposes to introduce regulations by the end of the year. The regulations have not been drafted yet.

Can you link to the law?
I thought it was just at proposal stage at the moment?

I agree with this, except I don't know much about things in China.

We don't have a say on the law anyway, and the crowds will be howling "protect our children!!!".

Of course people won't stop using it, but I think many could use it more hesitantly and discriminatingly. Something that's convenient, familiar and accessible may be seen as less so and viewed as less of a central go-to facet of their lives.

If it's your bank or email, then of course people expect to have to ID and verify themselves to access; but if it's just a way of passing time or satisfying a random curiosity (e.g. you see somebody on TV and are trying to think what else you've seen her in), you may just not bother. I already do that with sites that demand you go through and individually decline hundreds of cookies: I either find an alternative site or just don't bother.

By way of analogy, presumably because of mass shoplifting, my local branch of Sainsbury's Local now puts much of the slightly more expensive products in massive transparent plastic boxes; and they have these other weird plastic barriers on the shelves, so you have to reach your hand in and around to try to grab stuff, rather than it being right there in front of of you to simply reach out and take. I've never shoplifted anything; but because of all the added security faff, even though the items are still there and available to buy as they were before, I just can't be bothered with it if it's an impulse-style buy and not something that I really need, so I ignore it. I realise they want to protect their profits, and they have every right to do so; but to me as a customer, their store is now much less attractive to me, so I spend considerably less there than I used to.

Similarly, the whole idea of speed bumps is to slow people down and discourage them from using certain roads. You can still use the roads (although you may end up having to prematurely replace your exhaust), but their very presence makes you stop and consider whether you actually want to bother. I lived in a flat for a year where I was 8 flights of stairs up, with no lift. The stairs were strong and perfectly functional - and I was young and wasn't even disabled back then - but that factor meant that I nipped out for a few minutes far less than I would have done had I been on the ground floor. To be honest, even if there had been a lift, I would have been less inclined to bother as much.

Like in the lockdowns? 😷

Get the companies to actually do something about their algorithms, inappropriate content, perverts, radicalisation. It isn't going to be solved by banning teenagers.

I don't allow social media for my children so it isn't going to impact them but it's just putting a plaster over a deep wound. We need to hold these companies to account. We have the technology to do so they just don't want to.

I think internet access via ID is inevitable, looking at the direction it's all going.

China even has 'social credit', whereby you might not be necessarily punished for making 'wrong' choices or 'wrong' actions, but you can be officially shamed and lose basic human privileges if you don't step into line.

Nothing at all to do with actual crime - just 'socially wrong'. To be inappropriately flippant about it, a MN equivalent would be to publish a list of shame of all users who have admitted to having a toilet brush.

We're already seeing the beginnings of it in the UK, with people being 'cancelled' for 'wrongthink' or for (calmly) stating opinions that other people disagree with.

This is the problem. For years we had it drummed into to that we must protect our identity online for safety reasons. Now we are all being told to hand over our government issued ID to random tech companies that are usually based in other countries, some of whom have already had data breaches. Also, linking your real life ID to your social media accounts makes criticising the government online a dangerous activity - look how some people were treated during COVID if they didn't approve of lockdowns, such as the woman campaigning to keep schools open. And in many people's opinion she turned out to be right. How much do we trust this or any future UK government to preserve freedom of speech online? The actual banning of children from social media isn't the issue I have with this, it's the practicalities and effects of the process.

The linking shouldn’t happen. It’s not necessary for the gov to know.

I already don’t use some major platforms but do I want biometric info going to others, I guess I’ll have to weigh up the trade off.

How about we hold these companies to account for all the perverts and addictive nature of their apps.
Could they make social media that WASN'T addictive, even if they wanted to? Genuine question, not asking to be provocative.

Why do we bother with seatbelts in cars, regulations around their use and mandatory car seats for babies? Why do we even use seatbelts when the majority of us are not involved in accidents, especially when there’s some air bags built in by the car manufacturers to protect us, that’s enough isn’t it? There’s even self driving cars now, so why should our kids have to wait until 17 to learn how to drive and to get a licence before they can safely be a driver, why can’t my 8yo have a car now because all her friends have them?
Grrr, if only we lived in a more free society without all these controls on our lives etc, etc. 🙄

I know it's not (yet) connected with government per se, but I (as a middle-aged adult) have been bullied and semi-doxxed even on MN, necessitating several changes of username. If I hadn't had that function available to me, I would have just left MN and never come back.

People always cite beating trolls and giving bad actors nowhere to hide, but some of the measures aimed at this can be devastating for innocent people and victims who also get swept up in it. Why do people think that things like witness protection schemes exist in the first place?

I think if Labour don’t want to annoy a huge swathe of adults with this ban under 16s they should stick to private checks not linked gov digital ID.

Starmer is very up for digital ID but Burnham was against it, and maybe he’ll be in soon.

What this looks like would be better not behaving like a back door digital ID level of control over society.

On just using mn and linking to who you are, idk it might actually work to get me to log off ;

I don't think you know anything about my parenting and obviously didn't read my post as I said my children don't have social media.

People can disagree respectfully, there was no need to be so rude. Maybe you need a social media break from Mumsnet.

It shouldn't, no, but presumably all it would take is for the government to ask the social media platform for the real life details of any user they wanted to talk to, with a court order if necessary. I currently use a VPN when I can't access particular content, but that's such an easy loophole for them to fix (I use it for perfectly benign things for me as an adult, like private messaging people I already know, on Bluesky).

Facebook when it first started didn't have the endless scrolling, but they've adapted them all to do this. They used gambling sites and psychology to make it the most appealing and addictive they can. I don't know is the honest answer, I suspect so but it's the algorithms and the ability to radicalise whole groups of people that worry me most.

From the neuropsychological point of view, it is possible to make content less addictive.

Behaviourally, children need to keep busy in real life all the time, doing sports and hobbies, reading books, playing outside with friends etc. This is the only recipe against any addiction, internet is not the most dangerous one and no corporation or gov will do parenting to relieve parents of their responsibilities (even though the gov now pretends it will).

I read a few posts from parents and one mum summed it up for me... she said "what are they meant to do for 3-4 hours everyday"...

Um I dunno... live normal childhoods with engaged parents maybe hun?

They could that is true, and I think mnhq have to provide it.

That’s if needed though, data isn’t being scraped and watched constantly. I don’t feel what I post here is being used in gov tracking. It’s always a trade off. I like mn over other platforms but not enough to do digital ID for it.

If it’s just facial recognition still maybe not worth it for mn.

Gov can nudge population into healthier lifestyles using messaging as opposed to bans.

The good thing about MN is there is no popularity contest, no visible likes. Just discussion. Will it be banned also?

I agree but I think policing company's algorithms would be rather challenging. Similarly, policing thr dark web, which is where the pedos hang out.

👏 👏 👏

💯!!

This sounds like an argument for more government regulation rather than less, potentially impacting the free speech rights of adults.