alt Hacker NewsUK set to announce social media ban for under-16s
Comments
I know many people dislike this movement but really, I think it's a good idea. Yes, it removes the "free" internet as it was 20 years ago, but that's gone already anyway. Yes, it opens up the way to a police state without anonymous internet access, but arguing against any law to be against that just seems like straight up anarchism to me.
I see both children and adults being manipulated by corporations with "algorithms". Honestly, treating social media, porn, and other things as drugs would probably even be the right step.
Arguing about whether this is good or effective for kids or not is irrelevant. This isn't about kids at all. It's about surveillance.
Interesting that Canada is trying to do the same thing. Seems suspiciously similar.
The idea that this is about surveillance is also interesting.
I think it's important we ask: could we invoke this ban without surveillance?
- identity scan is one solution
But surely there are other solutions? Can't you just make laws that get kids in trouble if they get caught on social media? Kids get in trouble for missing school.. there are other incentives than identify checks, surely?
Somehow all the countries are suddenly proposing the same thing. You'd think at least one of these countries might try something different if they actually cared about the kids, like banning algorithmic feeds. Not suspicious at all.
What do you think this will lead to? Will mesh networks explode in popularity or maybe the adults will just log their kids in - and UK will then make that illegal... But how to surveil the parents then.
Personally I fear this will just become whackamole against communication innovation. it feels to me like an addition in a broader attempt to control communications in general.
I agree that children under 16 should be limited in their exposure to social media but... I am deeply worried this will be used to either limit everyone else's access (particularly in "times of crisis") or may lead to a national identity requirement for accessing the internet. It's a little alarming the tech-minded public has not pushed back on this more.
When you try to ban people from doing something they find ways to do it illegally. Humans have a need to socialize and kids are not going to stop using the internet for that just because of some law.
Aided by their parents, I'm sure, they will find seedier ways to do this. Ways that are not regulated at all, even by sensible laws that prevent direct exploitation. The parents obviously don't care that their kids use social media, otherwise they would take steps to stop it.
These laws are not going to bring back the days where we all were riding our bikes outside and reading physical books. That's not the way of life for these kids. But it's, very likely, going to put children in a more dangerous situation as they try to find some kind of solution to their social needs online.
The evidence of social media causing depression and anxiety in youth is mixed and almost all of the affirmative findings are correlational, so I expect to see a variety of takes in this comment thread.
Personally, the strongest positive evidence I've seen comes from the natural experiments tracking when high speed internet & phones were introduced geographically. Rates of teen depression do seem to topple in very close sync with this, as discussed here: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/phone-based-childhood-cause-epi...
I happened to talk to a teenage relative about this possibility the other day and she said that she'd be fine with a ban. It seems that it's not as big a deal if everyone's in the same boat. Parents genuinely have a hard time navigating this because drawing a line for their own children has the effect of socially excluding them.
It's not ideal in many senses (what age checks are we talking about here) but its worth thinking about some of the positive effects this might have on the young people growing up in the mess we've made of new media.
Password to bypass the Magna Carta and hundreds of years of reserving power to the British people: “Its4TheKids”
I'm absolutely fine with a social media ban for under 16s.
And completely against it actually meaning strong identification of over 16s.
When considering how to think about these restrictions, I turn to my 15 year old self back in the 90s and ask him "would you want the government to block you from using IRC, forums, guestbooks, and social web sites?"
His response would have been "go to hell", and he would have figured out a way to get around it anyways. Unless they're actually planning to track one government ID per person in a database, a truly horrifying idea that this project is slippery sloping towards (because if the current design is easily defeatable, then why do it at all?)
Having access to the entire internet, warts and all, as a kid did not ruin my life, it was an escape from the people I did not fit in with in the place I grew up, it taught me about humanity and ultimately led to a successful career for me.
Dave Bohnett, the founder of Geocities, stuck his neck out to protect the LGBT section of the site so that young adults could find a place to have community despite often growing up in places where it was dangerous to be gay, like it was for him when he grew up in a very conservative suburb of Chicago.
I don't think anyone has said more negative stuff about Facebook then I have, and I literally made a platform eager to try to destroy it, but this is not the way to do it. We should be thinking very, very carefully about when we let the government become our parents in scenarios like this when the unintended consequences seem quite likely be enormous and when there's no mechanism for retracting the law once it's implemented and we find out that, surprise surprise, it didn't magically cure depression in young adults.
I asked my Ouija board some questions and determined that:
- Select 3rd parties friends of government officials will be taxpayer funded to verify government ID's and live facial recognition.
- Said data will be "accidentally leaked" and somehow a myriad of 3rd parties and criminals end up with this data.
- People will be encouraged to purchase some form of identity protection monitoring service.
- People will conclude or theorize that all of this could have been avoided.
I have some ideas that could solve this without impacting anyone currently using the internet but there are no financial incentives for government officials to participate thus such ideas are dead in the water.
Didn't work in Australia, won't work in the UK.
Parents will just scan the kids in.
A lot of talk about the "why," absolutely nothing about the "how." The "how" is where the problem is.
Tbh, I think that this is still putting the blame on users and not in the actual tool designed to be as addictive as possible. It's like blaming people who get addicted to cigarettes.
Nice, let's hope they will be using their creativity and smarts to understand deeply how tech works and bypass these or create their own spaces. We have high hopes for you young people.
To this I say: Hey kids, go grow your own groups using free/libre open source decentralised, distributed post-blockchain holochain-powered https://moss.social
In other words, governments around the world finally found the cheat code to demolish online anonymity.
I think every country should adopt this actually. The sort of reasoning I see on social media shouldn't be exposed to children.
So "login with Facebook" won't be an option anymore for kids.
A lot of reporting seems to state that it's only for "high risk social media". Is that the case? Are they really picking and choosing which social media they will ban for under 16s?
Just ban social media.
Alternative title: ID verification to be required for all UK citizens to use social media
And this will apply to everyone once you have to prove you are over 16.
Great! Can we ban it for adults too?
Not sure if true (as it was on X) but I read that Bluesky would be exempt?
If there was any smart way of doing it, we should block it for everyone. Very little good has come of it. Also solves the age verification problem. It’s soooo difficult to not fall into the addiction trap, and I’m exhausted from keeping myself away from it.
It’s pretty amazing how all major nations are using various reasons to force global ID and verification all at once isn’t it?
Hear, hear!!!
When the OSA came into force I checked the iOS App Store and the top 10 apps in the UK at the time were all dodgy free VPNs. This legislation is utterly idiotic.
I'm sick of this government, they won't be getting my vote in the next GE.
Is it just me or did I missed a notice that Bluesky is not on the list of UK's banned social media?
I like it. We don’t need social media. It is just a convenient way for the elites to collect data and push agendas, and people can communicate in other online ways without limiting themselves to short attention span, doom scrolling and others. TBH I’d be happy that it doesn’t exist.
Quebec has it, too. IMO it should be banned for under-18s instead of under-16s.
The only problem is how to enforce it.
"Think of the children" used to shoehorn in the police state. Shudder to think where this will be in 100 years.
the party of lord mandelson do not care about kids
have a short cartoon about the U.K. banning everything
Fantastic idea. Now ban phones for under 16s as well.
I agree that there are issues, but won't kids find other places to congregate? Maybe in educational sites?
Another headline about the Digital ID prison system they're building to identify and restrict all access to the Internet for people of all ages.
Then perhaps comes the mark which is about restricting and controlling what you're allowed to buy and sell.
it's illegal for kids to vape too right? how's that working out?
(answer: https://ash.org.uk/resources/view/use-of-e-cigarettes-among-... )
Maybe, in the future, the UK will thing twice before electing a socialist government.
Our governments seem to have just two tools for big issues in society (because they're quick and cheap):
- Nudging, propaganda, posters and automated announcements
- New legislation to ban something
If something can't be fixed with either of those, nothing gets fixed. Shockingly this happens a lot!
Their mates will make some money and lobbyists appeased, then they'll get distracted about what to ban and clutch pearls over next, and the issues our children have will persist and get worse
If they were really concerned, they'd be doing something about the algorithmic feeds pumping right wing vitreol into everything and Elon constantly begging for race wars to start.
It's very obviously not about the children.
[dead]
[flagged]
I teach children. You have no idea how much social media has affected their attention, memory, critical reasoning and social skills: the social repercussions will be felt for decades.
And this isn't mentioning exposing easily malleable minds to propaganda paid for by states that see the UK as an enemy, all before their critical reasoning skills, and awareness of their emotions, and how their emotions can be used against them, have had the chance to develop.
I expect this to massively electorally backfire on the government. But in the long run, it will be more than worth it. The only alternative would be to blanket ban phones in schools, although they'll still be plugged into social media the minute they leave.