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https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2066624559122469145

UK's social media ban for under-16s is set to be enforced at device-level, with Apple and Google forced to verify the age of all users

This is how it should be done. Verify once and done.

Yes, and then don’t ban social media per se, but ban algorithms, with strict liability on any platforms that allow them.

Not sure what ban "algorithms" means there.

All software runs algorithms.

It’s about differentiating between simply providing stories in time order and using algorithms which cause radicalisation spirals.

My proposal is not to ban them - just that if you want something beyond time order, you are legally a publisher and responsible for all the content.

https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/2066624559122469145

UK's social media ban for under-16s is set to be enforced at device-level, with Apple and Google forced to verify the age of all users

This is how it should be done. Verify once and done.

So if I want to watch something on YouTube, I can no longer do so without being logged in?

And which privacy busting method are they going to use to verify my age? And how will they know it is still me when the log in is used?

And how are they going to enforce anything at device level on my Linux boxes (or, for that matter, a Windows VM which is not linked to any MS account)?


I think once people work out that this affects everyone's access, not just children, the reception won't be quite so enthusiastic.


I guess Proton VPN will be the only winners. I could do with one of their email accounts, anyway.

This.

1000x this.



Julia Hartley-Brewer
@JuliaHB1
I say this as a parent who is genuinely in two minds on a social media ban because the risks to our kids are clear but the solutions aren't.

Starmer's announcement is clearly a knee jerk attempt to do something popular as his authority crumbles. That's a dangerous background for making new laws.

https://x.com/JuliaHB1/status/2066420103818653774

Indeed.

He is not doing this because he thinks it is the right thing to do, he is doing something, anything quick and easy he can do that he can point to as a "legacy".

Whether its a good idea, thought through, principled or anything else is very much a tertiary concern.

Maybe? This hasn’t all come out of nowhere. It is an issue the government has been looking at for a while. Maybe Starmer has rushed it a bit because he wants some good news coverage, but we’ve been talking here about the UK possibly following the Australian model for months.

Norway and Spain have followed Australia with their own bans, and Ireland are talking about using their EU Presidency to make a decision on an EU-wide ban.

So this is definitely an idea that is out there and gaining momentum, independent of the impending defenestration of the British Prime Minister.

I'd rather ban the radicalisation algorithms then impose age restrictions, for multiple reasons previously discussed by many on PB.com, but Starmer is following a tide on this, and likely would have done the same even if his leadership weren't being questioned.

The Left have one major trump card on this topic.

They won't be bought out.

We all know that if Musk offered Reform or The Tories £50m they would shred the legislation within weeks of getting in to power.
.

Yeah, Tony Blair was a straight kind of guy who would never change legislation based on financial donations.

As far as I can work out the latest deal with Iran involves the US paying Iran for things that were supposed to happen as a result of the ceasefire in April.

Is there anything else to it?

There is no tariff to travel through the Hormuz Strait, Iran is simply charging a Maritime Service Charge. Thank Ticketmaster / Live Nation for the idea of a subtle rename to make an problematic tariff more market friendly..

The ayatollahs - not as bad as Ryanair?

Which reminds me of my Ryanair joke:

Michael O'Leary walks into a pub. The bartender greets him warmly "would you like our special offer? 2 pints for £1"

Mr O'Leary orders two pints and hands over his £1. The bartender then asks "now, would you like to hire some glasses for those?"

Regarding the proposed social media ban for under 16s...
The devil is naturally in the detail, particularly around enforcement, but the intent is hard to argue with.

Allowing social media companies to optimise children’s attention and emotional development around engagement metrics may prove to be one of the most damaging public policy failures of the early 21st century.

We impose rigorous safety standards on toys, medicines, food, cars, playgrounds and school buildings. We demand evidence, testing, regulation and oversight before exposing children to even relatively minor risks.

Yet somehow we collectively decided it was perfectly reasonable to hand children devices connected to platforms whose business model depends on maximising engagement, harvesting attention and encouraging compulsive use, then act surprised when rates of anxiety, self-harm, sleep deprivation and social dysfunction started moving in the wrong direction.

If a toy manufacturer discovered a mechanism that kept children compulsively pulling a lever hundreds of times a day, we would ban it. If a food company deliberately engineered products to create dependency in children, there would be parliamentary inquiries. Yet when technology companies use behavioural psychology to achieve similar outcomes, we call it innovation.

Whether a ban is practical is a separate question. But the idea that society should simply shrug and accept unlimited access to algorithmically-curated social media for 12 and 13 year-olds has always struck me as one of the stranger orthodoxies of the digital age.

Future generations may look back on it in much the same way we look back on cigarette adverts featuring doctors.

Totally agree - the way policymakers accepted the guff about them not being publishers was also remiss. I appreciate they aren’t a book publisher or even a newspaper publisher - but they are still the gatekeeper on what gets published, and promoted and demoted.

I don't see why they are less responsible for people publishing comments via their sites than a newspaper publishing comments.

I guess it’s not directly equivalent. Newspapers consider what is published whereas social media platforms publish everything automatically.

Here is the heart of the issue. We got off on the wrong foot. From the get go it should have been obvious that internet platforms are publishers with the same duties as Oxford University Press or The Times. They should not be able to claim the defence that they allow any old libellous or illegal rubbish to be posted any more than the Guardian can. Why should they?

If I posted and published random unchecked stuff from any source on my front door, visible to any passer by in a busy street, I could rightly be sued, and if bad enough rightly be visited by the old bill. Why is it any different for those who publish on the internet.

Because it started on the wrong foot it soon became unstoppable.

(I realise of course that PB is just such a site!)

If you use a mobile phone to make a threatening phone call to someone should the mobile phone company be held responsible?

As has been said, that’s a poor parallel.

And while I wouldn’t hold the mobile phone company responsible, I would expect the mobile phone company to be good members of society and engage with the government on what they can do to minimise any harms associated with their product, which they generally do. Compare that to, say, X making underage porn and ignoring multiple governments internationally for weeks.

Its a far better parallel than the Guardian which has been used here.

Maybe arguing about which metaphor is better for social media is a bit of a dead end. Social media is neither like old media or a mobile phone company, while it has similarities to both. We should have rules specific for social media.

The more important question is what should those rules be? Do you agree that social media can produce some social ills? What should governments do about that?

Everything produces social ills. The government does nothing about 99% of them because they either don't care or they are working in their favour. That is an argument for shutting down pubs, banning public marches and protests, and prosecuting people just for showing support for those who the gvernment disagrees with.

Actually... maybe you are on to something here given that is exactly what the Government has been trying to do.

Governments regulate most things to stop social ills. We regulate pubs and public marches extensively, and have done so for centuries. Sorry, have you teleported here from some sort of libertarian utopia? (I’m obviously using the original etymology of “utopia”.)

We don't hold pubs responsible for what people say in them. If we did there would be no pubs left - again something that might suit the Government very well. And we already regulate social media. What is being proposed goes way beyond that.

Social media is a…well…media. If I suggest a riot in a pub it won’t go any further unless I’m holding a megaphone and stand by a window. The same cannot be said for Facebook.

Yes, I’m sure like any analogy mine breaks down under any level of scrutiny, but so does yours. But pubs are not media channels.

We regulate what radio stations and television stations can broadcast. Social media channels can’t stop what’s inputted into them but they can control how it is disseminated and to whom. And they should. Like any other media.

It’s why I have no time for the “hurty words on Facebook” narrative. It’s much, much worse to post something inflammatory there than in a drunken rant with your pals in the pub.

Also - I know people take the piss out of Bluesky but the reason it’s so dull is precisely because it doesn’t push dopamine via an algorithm. As a self-diagnosed social media addict, the fact I don’t feel compelled to spend more than 10 minutes there at a time is a good thing.

I’m not sure this ban is the right intervention but there’s no doubt something needs to happen.

'Something must be done... this is something... we must do it!'

This has never been a good argument for new laws.

Agree. Though that can sometimes mean a much more substantial and comprehensive law, rather than a lot of the lightweight kneejerk stuff we get nowadays.

Regarding the proposed social media ban for under 16s...
The devil is naturally in the detail, particularly around enforcement, but the intent is hard to argue with.

Allowing social media companies to optimise children’s attention and emotional development around engagement metrics may prove to be one of the most damaging public policy failures of the early 21st century.

We impose rigorous safety standards on toys, medicines, food, cars, playgrounds and school buildings. We demand evidence, testing, regulation and oversight before exposing children to even relatively minor risks.

Yet somehow we collectively decided it was perfectly reasonable to hand children devices connected to platforms whose business model depends on maximising engagement, harvesting attention and encouraging compulsive use, then act surprised when rates of anxiety, self-harm, sleep deprivation and social dysfunction started moving in the wrong direction.

If a toy manufacturer discovered a mechanism that kept children compulsively pulling a lever hundreds of times a day, we would ban it. If a food company deliberately engineered products to create dependency in children, there would be parliamentary inquiries. Yet when technology companies use behavioural psychology to achieve similar outcomes, we call it innovation.

Whether a ban is practical is a separate question. But the idea that society should simply shrug and accept unlimited access to algorithmically-curated social media for 12 and 13 year-olds has always struck me as one of the stranger orthodoxies of the digital age.

Future generations may look back on it in much the same way we look back on cigarette adverts featuring doctors.

Totally agree - the way policymakers accepted the guff about them not being publishers was also remiss. I appreciate they aren’t a book publisher or even a newspaper publisher - but they are still the gatekeeper on what gets published, and promoted and demoted.

I don't see why they are less responsible for people publishing comments via their sites than a newspaper publishing comments.

I guess it’s not directly equivalent. Newspapers consider what is published whereas social media platforms publish everything automatically.

Here is the heart of the issue. We got off on the wrong foot. From the get go it should have been obvious that internet platforms are publishers with the same duties as Oxford University Press or The Times. They should not be able to claim the defence that they allow any old libellous or illegal rubbish to be posted any more than the Guardian can. Why should they?

If I posted and published random unchecked stuff from any source on my front door, visible to any passer by in a busy street, I could rightly be sued, and if bad enough rightly be visited by the old bill. Why is it any different for those who publish on the internet.

Because it started on the wrong foot it soon became unstoppable.

(I realise of course that PB is just such a site!)

If you use a mobile phone to make a threatening phone call to someone should the mobile phone company be held responsible?

As has been said, that’s a poor parallel.

And while I wouldn’t hold the mobile phone company responsible, I would expect the mobile phone company to be good members of society and engage with the government on what they can do to minimise any harms associated with their product, which they generally do. Compare that to, say, X making underage porn and ignoring multiple governments internationally for weeks.

Given that Bluesky has users on it who openly describe themselves as Minor Attracted Persons ie paedophiles, why is it omitted from the list of banned sites if the protection of children is the concern?

Regarding the proposed social media ban for under 16s...
The devil is naturally in the detail, particularly around enforcement, but the intent is hard to argue with.

Allowing social media companies to optimise children’s attention and emotional development around engagement metrics may prove to be one of the most damaging public policy failures of the early 21st century.

We impose rigorous safety standards on toys, medicines, food, cars, playgrounds and school buildings. We demand evidence, testing, regulation and oversight before exposing children to even relatively minor risks.

Yet somehow we collectively decided it was perfectly reasonable to hand children devices connected to platforms whose business model depends on maximising engagement, harvesting attention and encouraging compulsive use, then act surprised when rates of anxiety, self-harm, sleep deprivation and social dysfunction started moving in the wrong direction.

If a toy manufacturer discovered a mechanism that kept children compulsively pulling a lever hundreds of times a day, we would ban it. If a food company deliberately engineered products to create dependency in children, there would be parliamentary inquiries. Yet when technology companies use behavioural psychology to achieve similar outcomes, we call it innovation.

Whether a ban is practical is a separate question. But the idea that society should simply shrug and accept unlimited access to algorithmically-curated social media for 12 and 13 year-olds has always struck me as one of the stranger orthodoxies of the digital age.

Future generations may look back on it in much the same way we look back on cigarette adverts featuring doctors.

Oh don't be so bloody naive.

This is not about protecting children. It's about controlling access to social media for everyone - every single adult. And abolishing anonymity and privacy for those who use it. It is a profoundly illiberal and authoritarian measure.