UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-set-announce-social-media-34119132

by beejiu • 1 month ago

167 282 1 month ago

manchestereveningnews.co.uk

throwrioawfo• 1 month ago

Good

Retr0id• 1 month ago

Abstractly perhaps, but I'm not aware of any practical enforcement mechanism I'd classify as "good".

100ms• 1 month ago

It doesn't need to be perfect, but in spite of that perfect is possible if people ask for it. Don't tempt them. Look at what happened in Spain with Cloudflare.

throwawayffffas• 1 month ago

If the operators are liable, they will find a way, it's easy for the operators to infer a users age based on usage patterns. They must be required to close these accounts.

Schmerika• 1 month ago

Are you saying that with the awareness that this will be used to remove privacy from social media?

ck2• 1 month ago

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-... )

izzydata• 1 month ago

Better than if it weren't illegal I'm sure. Also I think it is that it is illegal to sell kids vapes. It's not illegal for the kids to vape.

ElProlactin6• 1 month ago

So just do nothing, right?

tokai• 1 month ago

Vaping prevalence among youth in UK has plateaued since 2022. So its slowly working.

Edit: as your own source conclude

camgunz• 1 month ago

The actual ban passed a couple months ago, after the data in your link was collected. But also, smoking bans (etc) had hugely positive effects on smoking rates. There's every reason to be positive.

christoph• 1 month ago

Same as whenever they talk about banning anything in society… They can’t keep drugs, weapons, phones, etc. out of prisons, which are entirely under government purview. Elect clowns, expect a circus.

calgoo4• 1 month ago

and what does that have to do with anything apart from diluting the point we have against the corrupt assholes.

calgoo4• 1 month ago

Wow looking at your history, please chill. You are very clearly related to the powers at be, i guess you feel unsafe unless uncle sam tucks you in at night. I feel sorry for you at this point...

mPogrzeb• 1 month ago

Cry me a river. At least someone is trying

xhkkffbf• 1 month ago

I agree that there are issues, but won't kids find other places to congregate? Maybe in educational sites?

testing22321• 1 month ago

Yes. Hopefully outside, in the park playing with a ball or running around.

nly5• 1 month ago

Perhaps using anonymous registration-free platforms like Session

fyredge• 1 month ago

Isn't that better? For one, they're connected to peers they have physically met. Additionally, they won't be exposed to strangers or ads that warp their world view.

I still believe that the government should ban unsolicited algorithmic content (so search engines are exempted), but this is a second best option.

nly5• 1 month ago

Alternative title: ID verification to be required for all UK citizens to use social media

jonplackett• 1 month ago

Well I needed a good reason to quit social media. This can be it.

stavros4• 1 month ago

He posted, on a social media website.

danielrmay• 1 month ago

I went back to the UK a few weeks ago for an old friend's wedding, and the ID verification process shocked me.

like_any_other2• 1 month ago

And as usual, no pro-privacy or pro-freedom groups were asked to give a comment for the article. I guess nobody objects on those grounds!

gslepak• 1 month ago

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.

calgoo4• 1 month ago

OR we can try to move this to the positive side instead of fighting the fascists. We dont NEED social media, its a cancer on humanity. So maybe instead accept this BS and move it towards a place that we can all agree upon. I understand the UK political system is corrupt to its core, like all world goverments, but that's not the reason why to ignore and give in to what the government is demanding.

like_any_other2• 1 month ago

There will still be social media. Most of the public conversation will still take place there. You just won't be able to use it anonymously (possibly not even read it).

calgoo4• 1 month ago

Also, stop your BS about a prison system, its not whats going on globally. You are just buying into the BS that Facebook and company are sending you. Good on you for buying into their propaganda. The world existed before social media and it will keep existing.

spacedoutman• 1 month ago

Didn't work in Australia, won't work in the UK.

Parents will just scan the kids in.

yladiz• 1 month ago

Can you provide some evidence that it didn’t work in Australia? Given the ban hasn’t been in place that long I’d like to see your sources about it not working.

sunaookami3• 1 month ago

NTA but it's literally in the article.

epihelix• 1 month ago

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/mar/31/meta-...

Limited success might be a better term. But if a supposedly blanket ban only stopped 30% of under-16s accounts from accessing social media, that does seem pretty failure-esque.

Fervicus2• 1 month ago

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.

paytonjjones3• 1 month ago

Regardless of the underlying motives and surveillance outcomes, it will surely affect the kids too. So it's worth discussing.

undersuit2• 1 month ago

No one is saying we should not discuss it, but discussing it in the context of the kids is a red herring. It will affect everyone.

philipallstar6• 1 month ago

This is obviously about kids. The problem is it requires surveillance. You don't get to decide what it's not about.

arcza• 1 month ago

and why do you get to decide what it "is about"?

cedws2• 1 month ago

The way this has been pushed through after countless attempts over the past decade, and push back from advising experts, does not feel like it originates from genuine concern for children. It feels like a state trying to wrestle for digital control amidst rising civil unrest.

childofhedgehog• 1 month ago

How is it “obviously about the kids”? Is it because they mentioned them? I would argue it will impact the kids but this isn’t being done for their benefit, it’s being done to regulate what we have access to as a whole. Slippery slope coming up!

folkrav• 1 month ago

Almost anything can be made "about the kids" with the right framing.

haunter2• 1 month ago

It will apply to everyone once you have to prove you are over 16. Kids are just the excuse.

theultdev10• 1 month ago

Riddle me this. If you have to verify yourself to prove you are over 16, did that just deanonymize you? Yes.

ElProlactin6• 1 month ago

Do you not see that the largest companies on the internet are also surveilling everyone and that the massive troves of data they're collecting about their registered users and even non-registered users is directly and indirectly accessible to governments around the world?

someguyiguess3• 1 month ago

Doesn’t that prove their point?

JonoBB2• 1 month ago

And yet the vast majority of parents are in favour of a ban.

dindunuf3• 1 month ago

vast majority of parents are in favor of banning plenty of things, including some that you like, need, or simply don't find objectable.

insurgent_dino3• 1 month ago

100%, anti-privacy and surveillance laws have always been wrapped in child protection and public safety.

paytonjjones3• 1 month ago

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...

functionmouse• 1 month ago

have a short cartoon about the U.K. banning everything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUep-4v_M9k

atollk6• 1 month ago

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.

tsunamifury2• 1 month ago

This is not about the good of the people. And the sooner you realize that this type of regulation will be used to manipulate you as much as what you fear is happening already the better.

The government is an entity that acts to protect itself. It has and always will fear an open and informed public.

vitriol83• 1 month ago

majority of parents are in favour of such a ban, otherwise they wouldn't do it

if social media companies hadn't made social media a total cesspit of disinformation, child grooming and algorithmic manipulation then the outcome might have been different

jMyles• 1 month ago

Honestly, treating social media, porn, and other things as drugs would probably even be the right step.

Adopting the drug prohibition model is fine, if what we want is to lavishly enrich the social media cartels, and visit upon the rest of the world needless crime, misery, addiction, and death.

cenamus• 1 month ago

Obviously OP is not

stavros4• 1 month ago

A better measure would be to mandate that social media platforms can only show you content from people you follow, and in chronological order.

witx• 1 month ago

I like this idea, to me the algorithm the most offending part.

But how do you control what a kid can or cannot follow? They can still follow Andrew Tate and his temu versions

nly5• 1 month ago

That basically kills the business model and would wipe hundreds of billions of $ in capital away

Not that I disagree

raincole2• 1 month ago

as drugs

Because war on drugs has been such a successful policy...?

paytonjjones3• 1 month ago

I'm not saying the war on drugs has been successful by any means.

But legalization has also been a really disappointing flop. After marijuana was legalized in my state, it has been really disturbing to see usage skyrocket among middle and high schoolers. A lot of people apparently derive their standards of morality from the legal system.

duped• 1 month ago

As a means of reducing incidence of drug use, prohibition does in fact work.

atollk6• 1 month ago

I have no idea how successful the US war on drugs has been and I don't need to, because I am not from the US and the US is not everything there is in the world. Just because one attempt to fight something bad failed, that doesn't mean every attempt ever at fighting anything bad is doomed to fail.

maccard6• 1 month ago

I disagree. I don’t have a huge problem with the UK government monitoring my online presence; I’m reasonably sure my ISP is siphoning all that information to them anyway. That may be problematic for some, but I’m ok with it.

My problem is that this info doesn’t go to the government; it goes to persona and Yoti. We are literally giving government issued IDs to tracking platforms to tell Meta, Google, ByteDance, Reddit who we are.

This isn’t about keeping children safe - if it was the law would be to mandate parental controls on devices. I’d stand behind that law.,

datsci_est_2015• 1 month ago

Isn’t it already impossible to be anonymous on the internet without flawless opsec? I’m surprised there isn’t a TV Tropes article about it but whenever a character in a show needs to be perfectly anonymous they visit an Internet cafe with a baseball cap and glasses - which while it’s a trope I think it also plays on our cultural understanding that significant diligence is required to maintain anonymity.

Edit: though I suppose the counterargument is that we shouldn’t make it any easier for surveillance states, especially technologically inept ones, to perform dragnet surveillance.

butchkass• 1 month ago

There’s a middle ground between going to cybercafes with sunglasses, and submitting a 4K scan of you gov ID before watching a YouTube video where someone says a bad word.

lotsofpulp• 1 month ago

Yes, it removes the "free" internet as it was 20 years ago, but that's gone already anyway.

The "free" internet is there, just the same as before. The proportion of people using it in the way they used to might have changed.

Aurornis7• 1 month ago

but really, I think it's a good idea.
Yes, it removes the "free" internet
Yes, it opens up the way to a police state without anonymous internet access

Is anyone else as stunned as I am by how many posters on tech websites have suddenly gone full anti-free-internet and embracing the police state?

The internet I grew up on was all about freedom and resisting the police state. Now the top voted comment (at least at time of me responding) is an open-arms welcoming of the internet police state and voicing support for removal of the free internet?

How did people become so naive to believe that this will benefit them? That the regulations are only going to impact kids who use the “bad sites” and not start reaching for your group chat rooms and your social news sites, too?

Do people not realize that they're going after Reddit, YouTube, and other sites, too? It's right there in the article. Think about how this has to be enforced: The only way to guarantee under-16s are banned from these sites is to force everyone to produce ID. You think it's a good idea to force us all to produce ID to watch YouTube videos or read a post on Reddit? This is what you want?

zepolen• 1 month ago

The posters account is 89 days old, it's a shill.

kelseyfrog• 1 month ago

Because we've been conditioned to believe that every good thing harbors a dark and sinister secret, that every attempt at improving our situation contains a fatal flaw.

It's a narrative trope, not real life. Come back to reality. It's what Omelas was trying to convey.

SkyeCA• 1 month ago

Over time it's become harder and harder to deny how bad some aspects of the internet are for people, especially for young people. Whether it's right or wrong it's not shocking that people are more willing than ever to entertain the idea of internet restrictions.

JonoBB2• 1 month ago

Because it’s a lesser evil, at least in the UK, which has a reasonably well functioning government and society.

As much as it pains me, I’d rather have that than the brain rot being forced on young kids. And you can argue all you want about “parental control”, but there are too many parents who don’t care, plus peer pressure is a real thing.

I also think that at that age all the social media sites are a net negative.

_heimdall5• 1 month ago

It doesn't surprise me at all. At least in the US, both major political parties fully embrace censorship and a police state. Sure the disagree on the details, but they agree pretty universally on the direction.

techblueberry5• 1 month ago

As an engineer, I tend to view solutions in terms of tradeoffs and not absolutes. 20 years ago the free and open internet was great. Now I think we’ve gone too far. And more to the point, I think freedom is protected by regulation, not by handing decisions over to whatever billionaire won a cage match.

This is the gen-x part of my xennial talking, but I can’t help but feel like something has been lost when nothing is transgressive anymore. Some people look back and say how can a gen x’er who fought against censorship be so pro censorship now.

A lot of people say this is dumb because teenagers will figure out a way to bypass it. Good! That’s what teenagers are supposed to do. I think there’s a sort of weird like - there’s something distopian about Elon Musk putting his stamp of approval on using edgy racial slurs on social media. If you’re young and want to make edgy jokes. It’s supposed to be transgressive! It’s _not_ supposed to get Elon Musk’s stamp of approval.

I don’t want to send anyone to jail for bypassing these laws or saying the wrong thing. It’s a hard needle to thread, but we need a code of conduct so people can make a choice to break it. So people can create alternate websites to the big social media companies. We need institutions without so much power so they can be jailbroken. And government is just plainly not the only powerful institution I fear.

deadbabe• 1 month ago

You think it's a good idea to force us all to produce ID to watch YouTube videos or read a post on Reddit? This is what you want?

No, I want more. I want us to not be able to use these sites at all.

The modern internet has become a cesspool. There’s some good stuff here and there but it’s not worth the overly negative downsides. Reddit is mostly bots. YouTube is becoming clickbait slop. Social Media platforms are ruining society.

We need an alternative to the internet. Not long ago, we did not have all these things and it was one of the best times to be alive.

ajkjk6• 1 month ago

I'm stunned when people can't reason about a tradeoff between two principles because they assigned infinite weight to one of them.

Police state=bad. Industrial scale drug addiction in kids=also bad. Some compromise must be made.

The slippery slope arguments do nothing. People are trying to solve this problem; trying to scare them with other problems they may have later--which they can solve separately!--is just irrelevant noise.

monssooon3• 1 month ago

There are very likely people who's work is to shill... Also here... If not influencing editors of entire sites even. But they are only needed until it becomes full though crime to even think outside of newspeak ;)

jbvlkt2• 1 month ago

Why do you think we lost free internet right now? In my opinion we lost it when all corporations switched to mass surveilance. Now we just stop pretending that social media corporations are not responsible for anything.

thisislife27• 1 month ago

The internet I grew up on was all about freedom and resisting the police state.

I grew up on that internet too (the freedom part). Do you really believe it is the same internet now?

Gone are the days when one could run their own mail server now because Apple or Google or Microsoft can suddenly deem it as "untrustworthy" or "suspicious" (based on some algorithm) and all your email will end up in spam. IRC and newsgroups have been hijacked by centralised Messengers and Social Media firms run by BigTech. They can ban you on these platforms for no reasons, without much recourse, holding your digital life hostage. Last year, I learnt that the much vaunted "free speech" no longer exists online - I have to fight and waste time with everyone - from the moderators to the platform "community managers" - to publish any factual pro-palestine or anti-Israli-right posts because these are being heavily censored on all western platforms (and unfortunately all English language communities are western platforms). Election manipulations by foreign platforms are also another danger every sovereign nations now faces.

How did people become so naive to believe that this will benefit them?

So I wouldn't say that people are being "naive". We don't want to live in an "echo chamber" controlled by western or Chinese BigTech corporates and their ideas of techno-fascism. Not to mention that we really cannot ignore any more the societal and political impact of some of these platforms - Facebook / Whatsapp are responsible for causing many social unrest around the world and even genocide (How Facebook contributed to genocide in Myanmar - https://systemicjustice.org/article/facebook-and-genocide-ho... ).

The negative psychological impact of social media addiction is so obvious even in adults. So imagine how much worse it is on kids / teens - it truly would be irresponsible to not regulate it.

That the regulations are only going to impact kids who use the “bad sites” and not start reaching for your group chat rooms and your social news sites, too?

Oh, very true! That is something to be very wary of. And the answer to that is to also fight for stronger privacy regulations and prevent government overreach. Not trust the government or the corporates to behave.

Here, you will have to understand and accept that unlike in America, where mistrust of government is inherent in the political structure (the US Presidential system favoured a weak central government because the makers were distrustful of a powerful Federal government) is very much in contrast to other parts of the world. Europeans expect and have more trust in their governments to regulate some aspects of their society, while the rest of the world prefers a "strong" Central government (and thus it is expected that the government will regulate many aspects of society). That is something fundamentally different vis American politics vs the rest of the world, that perhaps befuddles Americans.

In a democracy though, I don't see anything wrong in "trusting" your government more than local or foreign corporates (or even a foreign country - for all the talk about how America stood for "free speech", my experience with American / western owned platforms censoring my political ideas and beliefs has made me increasingly cynical if they ever truly believe in democratic values; so yeah - I guess you could also say that all this is also perhaps a backlash to current western politics).

vincnetas• 1 month ago

OG internet was not swarming with multibillion dollar predators ready to exploit every single psychological trick to manipulate you for profit. If you can solve this, i welcome the OG internet to be free and open place to share ideas. Let me know your suggestions.

ksec2• 1 month ago

Is anyone else as stunned as I am by how many posters on tech websites have suddenly gone full anti-free-internet and embracing the police state?

There is certainly an angle where people are fed up with the current state of things.

But generally speaking, the overall HN has been trending towards anti-free-internet and embracing the police state for a long time. I am pretty sure people can run an LLM on HN comments over the years.

TFNA2• 1 month ago

Do people not realize that they're going after Reddit

Reddit is a cesspool and an example of how we're in a post-peak internet like the OP says. If you actually browse Reddit the way the vast majority of people do now (i.e. not Old Reddit that masks the decline), it's crazy engagement-farming patterns everywhere, and not much of a community any more when many comments are hidden by default.

Most people today just like to fire off one-sentence comments; if you seek substantial discussion, you'll often now stand out as a weirdo on the spectrum, and may even draw downvotes and "lol wall of text bro" comments.

Yes, I follow close-knit little subs off the main page. There has been a flow of users away to WhatsApp groups, of all things -- it's that bad.

surgical_fire• 1 month ago

The internet as it is sucks in no uncertain terms.

While I dislike some of those regulations, I have no will to fight for the status quo.

Do people not realize that they're going after Reddit, YouTube, and other sites, too?

Consider that I have a profound hatred for both YouTube and Reddit.

Why should I care?

dgroshev2• 1 month ago

Let's look at an actual case study of a police state.

I think we can agree that a state-controlled paramilitary force executing a political opponent in broad daylight, on camera, is pretty far along the "police state" spectrum, right? This kind of thing is entirely incompatible with freedom, and should be a wake up call for the civil society to weed out anything that led to that, root and branch.

Enter the execution of Alex Pretti. Days after it happened, it transformed into yet another partisan issue, a topic for discussion, something that can possibly be justified. Effectively, it was normalised on the social and classic media. Media that, in the US, are pretty "free" [].

Negative freedoms are insufficient to stop a police state. What stops the police state is political engagement and regulation, and that requires a more nuanced understanding than just "either free of regulation or embracing the police state".

: …for moneyed interests to control and influence. For all their problems, I'd argue that BBC is substantially freer than say Fox News.

slopinthebag2• 1 month ago

Why shocked? When the internet got popular and the normies started flooding in the culture of the internet changed.

I’m more shocked in how authoritarian so-called “liberals” have gotten in the last 3 decades. I have to specify I’m a “classical” liberal now in order to not appear as if I desire a police state.

atollk6• 1 month ago

I feel like you only picked the parts from my comment you cited and then decided to ignore the rest. I specifically explained WHY I am in favor of those aspects you question.

Yes, it is what I want. Would it be, in an ideal world? No. But we don't live in that world, we live in reality. You only focus on the positive aspects of the internet and frame it that way. Try this one instead:

Do you not realize that you are being brainwashed by billionaires? Companies abuse your mind, track your behavior, collect your data, all to exploit you. They want to you to become addicted, to waste your entire life consuming their content, to become antisocial and alone.

This is our current reality. So, yes, if the cost is that the goverment knows who I am while browsing to remove all of that from our lives again, it would be what I want.

dindunuf3• 1 month ago

it takes very little effort from those who control the media to turn terminally online cattle for/against anything, because they are almost completely uncritical of their side of the establishment. pander to them 95% of the time, and you can use the remaining 5% to push whatever agenda you like.

among the least controversial things I can give as an example without getting silently downvoted and flagged, would you have ever imagined that particular demographic demanding draconian copyright laws? yet, here we are, copyright is good now.

luke727• 1 month ago

Is anyone else as stunned as I am by how many posters on tech websites have suddenly gone full anti-free-internet and embracing the police state?

I suspect it's because people of our generation (I'm assuming) grew up with similar experiences to ours and had kids, and want to protect them. To be fair it's worse now than when we were growing up; I can't imagine how awful it must be to grow up in the age of social media.

acheron• 1 month ago

“Suddenly”? Remember all the “net neutrality” bullshit years ago that was all about begging the government to regulate the Internet? This has been going on since the early 00s probably. If you’re old enough to remember the 90s and earlier Internet then yes, it’s a strange thing to see, but that ship has sailed, circumnavigated the globe, and been decommissioned.

nailer2• 1 month ago

it removes the "free" internet as it was 20 years ago

I’m not sure free internet was ever good for us. I didn’t need to see all those beheading videos.

breppp• 1 month ago

I think the bigger issue was when terror attacks started imitating FPS games

atollk6• 1 month ago

That is pretty much my point. I just wanted to point that out because, next to being controlled by the government, it's the most common argument against stuff like this I see.

dindunuf3• 1 month ago

I want you to imagine the sentiment here if it was "Russia set to announce social media ban for under-16s".

atollk6• 1 month ago

I would think to myself "I hope we do the same as well soon."

If the goal is to take away mental manipulation from children, them I am all for it, no matter who does it.

Lonestar1440• 1 month ago

Right. A lot of "Internet Freedom" is just dishonest Anarchism. A thought terminating cliche that halts otherwise brilliant people from actually considering the tradeoffs of policies like this.

The whole appeal of Anarchy is that The State always has the potential to become Evil. So, at a (very quick) first pass - eliminating The State kinda seems like it heads off some bad futures.

While some of the HN commentariat may be anarchists, you and I at least are not.

dijksterhuis• 1 month ago

Yes, it removes the "free" internet as it was 20 years ago,

social media is not, and never was the "free internet" we all get nostalgic about. maybe the first couple of years was something tangential, but that died very quickly. since then it's been a nightmare-ish hellscape of surveillance, manipulation and hate.

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.

anyone claiming something like that is happening here is just spreading paranoiac FUD via a cheap and lazy straw man. if UK law starts requiring me to provide ID just to read rust crate documentation or connect to the internet then that is an issue. i would be very unhappy about it. but that is not happening here.

let's not be drama queens about it.

Honestly, treating social media, porn, and other things as drugs would probably even be the right step.

i've asserted for a very long bloody time that major social media platforms, not the internet in general, should require government ID verification of some sort to have an account. would likely make it far easier for the police to prosecute a lot of the nasty shit that only happens on those platforms.

having said that, these platforms are designed to prioritise engagement and angry, toxic and hate-filled people click more. so it's the platform's fault but as ever they're not cleaning up their mess.

if folks on HN wanna blame someone or get angry then get angry at the platforms for letting it get to where we are today. it's their own fucking faults.

sunaookami3• 1 month ago

"Yes, it will lead to mass surveillance but who cares anyway? You can't just argue against that, that's anarchism!"

Do you know how you sound? Stop falling for these tactics, no one is caring for the children while making these laws.

atollk6• 1 month ago

Yes, I sound like someone who cares about our well-being as humans, and I am happy about that.

Do you know how you sound yourself? A conspiracist. If indeed everyone is out to get us and wants to control our brains, then that's f'd up. But you have just as little knowledge about whether that is true as I do.

gadders• 1 month ago

It's a good idea, as long as this clown show of a government doesn't link it to mandatory digital IDs.

NopIdoN• 1 month ago

Any reason to think they won't?

porknubbins• 1 month ago

Keeping children off social media, or to a very limited children only social media seems obviously a good thing.

My issue is the UK “free” speech standards seem to be something like free speech as long as its reasonable, doesn’t offend or excite too many people, cast aspersions on those in power etc, in other words not very free at all. And any form of internet registration could be used to tie more people to their posts.

Of course restricting posting some benefit exists as we seen in the US with robust free speech and twitter being overrun with third world posters attempting to influence domestic politics.

monssooon3• 1 month ago

The post was edited?!

ginko• 1 month ago

I'm generally in agreement on social media bans for children, but the proposed solution is age verification on all platforms which has a huge amount of problems.

Why can't we just ban the use of smartphones without parental locks for under 16-year-olds instead? That's not perfect but would already be a huge improvement and adults wouldn't be affected by it.

laughing_man• 1 month ago

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.

The issue is once the mechanism is in place, the government will surely use that mechanism when it's convenient. You need look no further than the Online Safety Act of 2023, which was sold as a way to protect children but didn't even go a whole week before the government was censoring videos for political reasons.

The end of internet anonymity is a one-way door. Once we're through there will be no going back.

Fervicus2• 1 month ago

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.

beejiu• 1 month ago

I'm probably going down a conspiracy theory, but it's notable when all the Five Eyes countries seem to start talking about the same problem and pushing through legislation. The US would probably do the same if not for the constitution.

da-x• 1 month ago

I think there's some sort of 'social pressure' between nations. Policies during the COVID-19 era come to mind.

someguyiguess3• 1 month ago

Not sure how closely you follow US news, but a majority of Americans feel that the current US administration is not all that concerned with the constitution, so that not really a blocker.

maccard6• 1 month ago

I don’t think it’s suspicious - I think trust globally in tech companies has been deteriorating at the same pace in most western countries is all.

someguyiguess3• 1 month ago

But so has trust in government (for very good reasons). And those same unscrupulous governments are heavily influenced by the very same tech companies people are suspicious of.

iamnothere2• 1 month ago

Then why not regulate some other aspect of those companies? Surely the harms extend beyond children?

This is not about tech companies, they will shrug it off. It’s about containing protest and suppressing public speech.

worldsavior• 1 month ago

Everyone started using Claude for coding at the same time, something is suspicious!

gib4444• 1 month ago

Not beyond the realms of possibility that Meta etc has decided it wants government/photo ID and has convinced governments to implement it

Big tech will act inconvenienced but they will in reality benefit

Just like any attempt by a UK Gov to fix housing: they just make it worse, because that was the real aim (yes I include the latest renter's rights legislation)

simplyluke• 1 month ago

And yet you're still labeled a conspiracy theorist if you suggest that their might be ulterior motives for identity verification in the nation that arrested 12,000 people for what they posted online in 2023.

I'm actually very supportive of getting rid of screens + social media for kids. I don't the reasons I'm supportive of that bear any resemblance to the motives of the UK's political class.

Gigachad4• 1 month ago

World leaders pay attention to the world. Australia implemented the law and it went smoothly. So naturally other world leaders are going to see that as a green light that the general public is on board and the tech companies complied.

shrubble• 1 month ago

Password to bypass the Magna Carta and hundreds of years of reserving power to the British people: “Its4TheKids”

raincole2• 1 month ago

In other words, governments around the world finally found the cheat code to demolish online anonymity.

notarobot123• 1 month ago

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.

cs02rm0• 1 month ago

I'm absolutely fine with a social media ban for under 16s.

And completely against it actually meaning strong identification of over 16s.

tsunamifury2• 1 month ago

It’s pretty amazing how all major nations are using various reasons to force global ID and verification all at once isn’t it?

sufficientsoup• 1 month ago

Doesn't even seem like various reasons.

dom962• 1 month ago

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?

eunice• 1 month ago

the party of lord mandelson do not care about kids

markus_zhang• 1 month ago

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.

jbvlkt2• 1 month ago

Exactly, I stoped using all social media and I feel way better and my screen time went significantly down. It is harder to communicate with some people (have to use email or sms) but it reduced mostly meaningless small talk we can do in person.

peab2• 1 month ago

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?

maccard6• 1 month ago

The solution is parental controls on devices.

academic_84572• 1 month ago

Surely we know by now that this is not enough?

Kids find ways around everything. Even adults find the 'digital wellbeing' tools on Android and iOS useless. Just look at the multitude of apps available for digital self regulation these days (ScreenZen, Freedom, BlockSite, etc). No single solution works for everybody at the moment.

Regulation by itself is also insufficient. But maybe combining regulation with parental controls plus other measures will be effective. A 'defense in depth' or swiss cheese strategy, with multiple layers of protection.

I do hope we figure out what layers are needed soon, though. It feels like we're running out of time.

drnick14• 1 month ago

The solution is parenting, period. Do not give your kid an Internet-connected device before they are ready for it.

DenisM• 1 month ago

Simpler still, a “minor” bit on the phone, set by parents once. All services must respect the bit in http headers, and app stores should refuse to install certain apps. No need for id check

I imagine that many parent don’t want micromanage their kids apps, this takes care of the problem.

insurgent_dino3• 1 month ago

This

The government shouldn't be parenting other parents kids

theptip2• 1 month ago

I’m in favor of this, but it doesn’t solve the full problem. If all your friends use social media as the fabric of their social interactions, you’ll be ostracized if you opt out as an individual.

IOW its a coordination problem. You need most of the other parents in your social group to also implement those controls.

llm_nerd• 1 month ago

Interesting that Canada is trying to do the same thing. Seems suspiciously similar.

Australia already did. Commonwealth countries share a lot in common, and of course a lot of problems are common across many countries.

But let's be real -- these countries are announcing it in lockstep because the US is a corrupt plutocracy, and the lords of the nation like Mark Zuckerberg will run to Trump and he'll have a little tantrum (tantrums that always, it should be mentioned, just hurt Americans more. Everything is in the service of the billionaire class) about this.

It's tougher for that grifter to do so if so many countries do it simultaneously.

The idea that this is about surveillance is also interesting.

What idea is that? That firms from foreign nations will gather IDs, of absolutely zero value for the country, to ensure age compliance? How does this silly conspiracy work?

Kids motivated will just get around it. But I think it's pretty clear at this point, given the idiocracies rising worldwide and how everything is getting stupider/worse, that social media has not been a net good.

Devasta• 1 month ago

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.

rdiddly• 1 month ago

A lot of talk about the "why," absolutely nothing about the "how." The "how" is where the problem is.

demorro3• 1 month ago

Dead on. If we could wave our magic wands and ban "harmful social media" without negative externalities we'd probably do it, but we can't.

Sometimes I think legislators think laws are these magic documents which just directly mutate reality.

andy_ppp• 1 month ago

Great! Can we ban it for adults too?

zetanor• 1 month ago

Just ban social media.

ciupicri• 1 month ago

So "login with Facebook" won't be an option anymore for kids.

kyledrake2• 1 month ago

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.

Peanuts99• 1 month ago

Social media sites today are nothing like the forums and guestbooks of the 90s. Social media now is highly effective at developing addiction like symptoms as well as driving people to decisive topics and conspiracy theories. It has a measurable effect on teenagers wellbeing and academic performance too.

My bigger concern is the how rather than the why on this topic.

kyledrake2• 1 month ago

I'll agree with you that I'm far more worried about the how than the why, exponentially more worried.

I'm just not sure if "this time it's different". There was abundant decisive political smearing and conspiracy theories on Geocities. They had an entire section called Area51 (https://geocities.restorativland.org/Area51). There was a politics neighborhood that had a bunch of crass political bashing (it's pretty funny to read about someone off his rocker about Janet Reno). There was also the Art Bell show playing in every radio market with him interviewing vampire experts and whatnot. The old Internet/culture really wasn't all that different than it is today.

dyauspitr• 1 month ago

Fantastic idea. Now ban phones for under 16s as well.

thesumofall• 1 month ago

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.

Gonxa6282• 1 month ago

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.

evilturnip• 1 month ago

"Think of the children" used to shoehorn in the police state. Shudder to think where this will be in 100 years.

baal80spam• 1 month ago

100? More like 10.

drnick14• 1 month ago

Maybe, in the future, the UK will thing twice before electing a socialist government.

gib4444• 1 month ago

It's supported by both major parties. Quite strongly by the Conservatives in fact

Bender• 1 month ago

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.

gib4444• 1 month ago

- It will somehow cost at least £1bn because everything costs £1bn these days

(NB it'll start off at a lower figure)

cedws2• 1 month ago

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.

conradfr• 1 month ago

Not sure if true (as it was on X) but I read that Bluesky would be exempt?

gib4444• 1 month ago

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

phyzix5761• 1 month ago

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.

theptip2• 1 month ago

Counterpoint - this is a coordination problem, there are studies suggesting that most kids would rather not participate in the whole social media thing but an individual can’t opt out.

It’s very possible that a policy like this could give everyone a new Schelling point to coordinate around, and thus change the default behavior.

We will see! I certainly agree this policy won’t prevent the kids that really want to use an app.

danw1979• 1 month ago

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.

They’ll do what my son has done his whole teenage life, having been banned from social media by me before he even asked for it, and go out and see their mates in real life !

oddb0d• 1 month ago

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

tarkin22• 1 month ago

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.

nly5• 1 month ago

Tbh I've never understood why a strict non-negotiable ban on phones in schools hasn't been in place. This is an easy win with no negative consequences for adults.

thisislife27• 1 month ago

I too don't like all this "age-verification" approach, but how does banning phones in school prevent kids / teens from using social media?

jvvw5• 1 month ago

It already exists in the schools near where I live in the UK, but only came into place in some of them in the last year. I was surprised that they had been so slow about it.

vrighter• 1 month ago

it was the case when i was younger and phones were still dumb. We've gone backwards

insurgent_dino3• 1 month ago

Do you agree that parents should be the one protecting their children from this 'propaganda' and internet slop?

Whilst I agree that social media can be overwhelmingly negative especially for young people, dont you recon that the risk to privacy and free-nature / increased surveillance of the internet is a greater problem?

tarkin22• 1 month ago

Shouldn't parents be the ones to protect their children from the dangers of heroin, rather than an over-reaching state?

alephnerd• 1 month ago

Not OP but parental controls have existed for over a decade in these platforms with little to no uptake.

Now that the UK has had 3 major riots in the past 24 months exacerbated by foreign social media bots, it is all the more critical to prevent children from falling into the trap.

The time for the carrot is over. It's time for the stick.

On a separate note, I find it funny that plenty of so called internet freedom supporters are using HN given that it's terms and conditions give YC full ownership of comments in perpetuity.

halJordan• 1 month ago

I think they should be "one of" not "the one." You know, it takes a village. And in any event, as others have said, parents have completely refused to participate in the question anyways, so in the real world your statement is not worth the paper it's written on.

mmarq• 1 month ago

I’m a parent, children should be banned from social media and enforcement should include serious fines for parents who don’t monitor their children.

After the first 2-3 fines, people will magically learn to use parental control and the idiocy of age verification will end.

yw3410• 1 month ago

May I ask how long you've been teaching and generally how big the behavioural change and/or timespan has been?

iugtmkbdfil834• 1 month ago

My kid's school bans phones for that very reason. I find the age limit annoying and very easy to circumvent, which renders it pointless. This is a problem, because I agree with the benefits of kids attention not being eroded at scale.

edit: added age

hackable_sand• 1 month ago

That's just a long way to say you hate Pink Floyd

demorro3• 1 month ago

I'm really torn on this. On the one hand I agree with you 100%, whilst on the other I have little faith that our government will implement in a non-damaging way. However, I'd almost be willing to trade some amount of civil-liberty in order to protect us from the rot of social media. If I could ban everyone from "harmful social media" I would, I just understand that's impossible to define and implement without massive unintended externalities.

I'm not naive to how much of a slippery slope that is, and I don't think the government is pursuing this in good faith. Nonetheless, here we are.

penguin_booze• 1 month ago

The other potential good outcomes are that (1) make a dent (however minuscule) into current and future revenue of parasitic american companies (2) a next generation of young people growing up not addicted to social media.

The latter has the same effect of trying to proselytise to a grown, intelligent adult. The response is, quite rightly, yuck.

epolanski• 1 month ago

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.

I don't see different results among my peers (I'm 39) let alone older people.

Seeing my family, it's mostly the 50+ that are consistently distracted by phones, not the Gen Zs.

mrighele2• 1 month ago

I am fine with banning social media for minors.

What I find utterly wrong is the method, because this way you end up tracking also every adult.

A better way would be to legislate that minors need to use devices specifically designed for them, so that they can be kept under control, and forbid them to use regular devices.

My daughter cannot drive my car, and I don't need to insert my id card to use it, nor there is a facial recognition system to ensure that I am an adult.

Banning the kids from access social media sounds like just an excuse to be able to track adults.

intrasight2• 1 month ago

You seem to have contradicted yourself saying it's OK to ban them and then saying it's just an excuse to track adults. But you're no exception it seems everyone involved in this discussion is conflicting these two issues. How about we just say we're going to ban minors - make that the law, and then figure out the proper technical approach? We're smart technologies here and I'm sure in about an hour we could find a solution.

melodyogonna• 1 month ago

I think every country should adopt this actually. The sort of reasoning I see on social media shouldn't be exposed to children.

monssooon3• 1 month ago

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.

Gigachad4• 1 month ago

I hope it leads to people going outside and talking face to face again.

haunter2• 1 month ago

And this will apply to everyone once you have to prove you are over 16.

hollow-moe• 1 month ago

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.

ajay-b• 1 month ago

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.

theultdev10• 1 month ago

Yeah where are the site banners? We had more for BLM than this.

Guess gone are the days of net neutrality and privacy protests by devs.

egberts1• 1 month ago

Is it just me or did I missed a notice that Bluesky is not on the list of UK's banned social media?

ruicraveiro• 1 month ago

Hear, hear!!!

MyMemoryfails• 1 month ago

I still think we're solving social media from wrong angle. We should fix the addiction nature, so we can still use social media for informative purposes. (like hobby forums) Before the big platforms took over, there was lots rich information sources about tech and programming I wouldnt be there if those forums did not exist. Right now its just bunch negativity dopamine hits.

It's still weird how those social media bans are essentially "anything with chat/messages requires age check".

If social media is affecting learning, then ban using phones at schools, it's been very effective all around world with no privacy risks.

DrProtic• 1 month ago

Bluesky seems to be exempt, I wonder why.

CrimsonCape• 1 month ago

Ultimately, if a kid is super digitally connected and using social media all day, can't his/her final grades be enough evidence?

I'd like to hear some arguments how we must ban certain technology in school; meanwhile it's plain to see to anybody with a brain cell that there is an entire corrupt stack from state government down to the individual classroom that *students must not be given failing grades*.

Here's a thought experiment: provide an opinion to both of these assertions. The rule of the experiment is you cannot give an opinion to one without answering the other.

- We should ban social media in school

- We should ban failing grades in school

_imnothere• 1 month ago

Is social media bad for children? yes (heck it's even bad for adults)

Did the UK do this for good cause? absolutely not, they're doing this for the same purpose of all that age-verification bs.

Arch-TK• 1 month ago

I don't really care about a ban like this, but I do strongly care about exactly how they plan to enforce it. There are technical solutions which are both inexpensive, would be just as effective, and which would fully respect the privacy of all individuals.

But, regardless of whether the push is well meaning or not, the UK government has a historical track record of trying its best to eradicate the concept of an individual having any right to privacy from the government. A significant chunk of the population seems to even believe that wanting privacy from the government is a signal that you are doing something illegal.

People have been making comparisons to 1984 for years, but the current state of the UK should genuinely be raising alarms. It's like they're trying to compete with China for control over their population.

UK set to announce social media ban for under-16s

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