Russian operatives ran their sabotage and provocation campaign remotely through social media and the messaging app Telegram, we found, creating fake online far-right and Muslim groups, which were used to organise acts of vandalism in the UK and stir up division and fear.
Accounts based in Russia posted lies about the motive for the arson attacks targeting Starmer, which were spread by figures such as far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.
The social media companies don’t seem to be doing enough about this sort of thing, so I suggest government should.
According to the BBC report, the police were informed about the nefarious activities of this group, and did nothing. They broke a dozen laws, so why don't we try using those to stop the activity, rather than grabbing more power over speech to supress the resulting chatter?
The possible failings of the police don’t mean we shouldn’t also look at updating the law.
Actually they do. Why keep passing new and more draconian laws if the police won't even bother to uphold the ones we already have?
The police are oh so keen to find reasons to arrest people for incitement or hate crimes whch might cause offence but are unwilling or incapable of dealing with real crimes even when the evidence is staring them in the face.
What is really funny is I can see the police arresting someone for supposedly inciting an attack whilst not bothering to do anything to prevent the actual attack itself. Such is the state of modern law enforcement.
Like many in the public sector, they want an easy life.
For the record, most people -public or private sector, at school, retired or whatever- want an easy life.
Sure, but in the private sector you are subject to targets (real ones) and performance management.
You'll like this guy then.
In May 2026 the government announced that it had introduced performance-based pay progression for the Senior Civil Service, with those who “deliver for the public at an exceptional level being rewarded with salary increases”. In a December 2024 speech, Sir Keir Starmer had observed that “too many people in Whitehall” were “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.
The Starmer government is reaching for the bluntest instrument available. The ban.
There's a decvent historical parallel. In 1915, faced with a product that was legal, popular, and producing measurable harm, the British government did something.
The Central Control Board nationalised pubs, off-licences, and breweries in Carlisle and Gretna. And they stayed in public ownership until 1973.
The structural problem with social media is that the harm is the business model. Engagement, algorithmic anxiety, infinite scroll... they're revenue maximizing features. Banning under-16s doesn't change any of that. It just means teenagers find workarounds within forty-five minutes.
A state-owned social platform for younger users -no advertising, no engagement algorithm, no data harvesting- would be monumentally uncool. But it could nevertheless be the default option. We could even call it Gretnagram.
So Ted Heath did manage to privatise something then.
The Starmer government is reaching for the bluntest instrument available. The ban.
There's a decvent historical parallel. In 1915, faced with a product that was legal, popular, and producing measurable harm, the British government did something.
The Central Control Board nationalised pubs, off-licences, and breweries in Carlisle and Gretna. And they stayed in public ownership until 1973.
The structural problem with social media is that the harm is the business model. Engagement, algorithmic anxiety, infinite scroll... they're revenue maximizing features. Banning under-16s doesn't change any of that. It just means teenagers find workarounds within forty-five minutes.
A state-owned social platform for younger users -no advertising, no engagement algorithm, no data harvesting- would be monumentally uncool. But it could nevertheless be the default option. We could even call it Gretnagram.
So Ted Heath did manage to privatise something then.
I’m not really that tech savvy so if it’s just down to verifying ID for the device how does each site you connect to know you’ve confirmed ID ?
Very easy to have a secure ID on the device that just recognises that.
However how does that work for shared devices?
We stream on our TVs. If I log into a TV as an adult, then my kids want to use it, what happens?
I just can’t see how it works for YouTube on TV’s. You’re right, it’s a shared device. We watch YouTube on our TV on my sign in.
Given YouTube has been eating into linear TVs viewers for years now and is bigger than most TV channels in terms of viewership I’m not surprised the legacy media is fully behind a move that nobbles competition.
The ban, if it actually happens given the likely change of government, will not work.
Kids are remarkably good at finding loopholes, workarounds.
The inconsistency of approach is just bad law making.
16 year olds can vote but not view a YouTube video is just ludicrous thinking
And why is Bluesky excluded from the list considering it is a Twitter dupe.
This is just Starmer trying to use his last days in office to make a splash.
The evidence from elsewhere is that it will not work. It will cut kids off from valuable resources.
It is just a headline not a properly developed policy
Burnham is likely to scrap or heavily modify it once he takes office.
16 year olds shouldn’t be able to vote
Have you been to Scotland where they can not only vote but can actually get married/civil partnerships. Shocking.
I have, and just because the Scottish government chose to do something stupid because they thought it would secure extra votes for the SNP doesn’t mean we should copy them
The ban, if it actually happens given the likely change of government, will not work.
Kids are remarkably good at finding loopholes, workarounds.
The inconsistency of approach is just bad law making.
16 year olds can vote but not view a YouTube video is just ludicrous thinking
And why is Bluesky excluded from the list considering it is a Twitter dupe.
This is just Starmer trying to use his last days in office to make a splash.
The evidence from elsewhere is that it will not work. It will cut kids off from valuable resources.
It is just a headline not a properly developed policy
Burnham is likely to scrap or heavily modify it once he takes office.
16 year olds shouldn’t be able to vote
Have you been to Scotland where they can not only vote but can actually get married/civil partnerships. Shocking.
I have, and just because the Scottish government chose to do something stupid because they thought it would secure extra votes for the SNP doesn’t mean we should copy them
16 and 17 years olds can vote but can’t look at social media after 9PM.
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)?....
He's going to do it, isn't he. He's about to authorise the killing of the old and the sick. He's abolished the concept of transsexuality. He's limited jury trials and the right of protest. He's going to authorise voluntary repatriation. And now we have to prove our age to watch YouTube. Any Labour MP with a conscience should have voted him out long ago. But they're all too worried about their jobs. "Left wing" my arse.
Does that mean we get other "video" sites back on our phones ?
The Starmer government is reaching for the bluntest instrument available. The ban.
There's a decvent historical parallel. In 1915, faced with a product that was legal, popular, and producing measurable harm, the British government did something.
The Central Control Board nationalised pubs, off-licences, and breweries in Carlisle and Gretna. And they stayed in public ownership until 1973.
The structural problem with social media is that the harm is the business model. Engagement, algorithmic anxiety, infinite scroll... they're revenue maximizing features. Banning under-16s doesn't change any of that. It just means teenagers find workarounds within forty-five minutes.
A state-owned social platform for younger users -no advertising, no engagement algorithm, no data harvesting- would be monumentally uncool. But it could nevertheless be the default option. We could even call it Gretnagram.
So Ted Heath did manage to privatise something then.
The social media crackdown is inevitable. It's not a Starmer-specific policy.
The harm done by algorithmic social media is incredibly clear, particularly on developing minds aka teenagers.
This isn't a question of free speech. No one is banning any given view. It's a question of whether we should permit an addictive substance (social media) to be used by people younger than the minimum age for buying cigarettes.
And because social media has such strong network and peer pressure effects, banning mainstream social media below a certain ages is the most effective solution.
I agree about the harm of algorithmic feeds, but banning the organisations per se that use it is not the answer. And banning the organisations is banning any given view by definition. Do you understand what this proposed ban *actually* involves, because your post makes me think you don't.
The policy doesn't ban them per se. It bans them for a certain age group of non-adults. We ban lots of things for non-adults.
Stating that the ban only applies to a subgroup doesn't show that there isn't a ban, it shows that there is one.
Nah, the organisations would be restricted not banned. It is the young peoples actions that would be banned.
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.
Someone should tell them about the hole in their plan called a 'Personal Computer'.
It's a better solution for legitimate users of age restricted content than the online safely act mess, but it's going to be a fat lot of good for blocking determined kids.
How long before there is a jailbroken version of Android out there that classifies you as an adult without verification? 12 hours? I'm not sure about other manufacturers, but certainly Google Pixel phones used to have easily unlocked bootloaders (I've not had cause to try for a while).
It also doesn't stop all of this being circumvented just by running a VPN, which make the whole business pretty pointless.
Easy! All the government has to do is to ban VPNs.
And then SSH, Tor, etc. etc. etc.
The whole banning exercise seems to be a roundabout way of using the guise of protecting kids, which appears to have public support, into a means for banning VPNs and introducing digital ID across the board.
I’m not really that tech savvy so if it’s just down to verifying ID for the device how does each site you connect to know you’ve confirmed ID ?
Very easy to have a secure ID on the device that just recognises that.
However how does that work for shared devices?
We stream on our TVs. If I log into a TV as an adult, then my kids want to use it, what happens?
I suspect the logic goes - you have social media account, connect to it on phone, phone confirms you are x years old, social media account uses that going forward.
That's already how it works on Reddit, my account there has a flag saying I'm 18+.
So it then becomes how does the TV app handle it and I suspect it will end up
Account has confirmation that you are 18+ so can see everything and its then up to the parents to lock things down
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
The ban, if it actually happens given the likely change of government, will not work.
Kids are remarkably good at finding loopholes, workarounds.
The inconsistency of approach is just bad law making.
16 year olds can vote but not view a YouTube video is just ludicrous thinking
And why is Bluesky excluded from the list considering it is a Twitter dupe.
This is just Starmer trying to use his last days in office to make a splash.
The evidence from elsewhere is that it will not work. It will cut kids off from valuable resources.
It is just a headline not a properly developed policy
Burnham is likely to scrap or heavily modify it once he takes office.
16 year olds shouldn’t be able to vote
16 years should have been allowed to vote when the school leaving age was 16.
Since the school leaving age is now 18 we seem to have this strange idea that they can vote but can't drink, smoke, drive, leave education but can vote - it's stupid electoral age related gerrymandering and is probably not going to give Labour what they hoped for.
16-18 voting intents could well have tended labour because the previous Government was Tory and they couldn't vote..
Russian operatives ran their sabotage and provocation campaign remotely through social media and the messaging app Telegram, we found, creating fake online far-right and Muslim groups, which were used to organise acts of vandalism in the UK and stir up division and fear.
Accounts based in Russia posted lies about the motive for the arson attacks targeting Starmer, which were spread by figures such as far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.
The social media companies don’t seem to be doing enough about this sort of thing, so I suggest government should.
According to the BBC report, the police were informed about the nefarious activities of this group, and did nothing. They broke a dozen laws, so why don't we try using those to stop the activity, rather than grabbing more power over speech to supress the resulting chatter?
The possible failings of the police don’t mean we shouldn’t also look at updating the law.
Actually they do. Why keep passing new and more draconian laws if the police won't even bother to uphold the ones we already have?
The police are oh so keen to find reasons to arrest people for incitement or hate crimes whch might cause offence but are unwilling or incapable of dealing with real crimes even when the evidence is staring them in the face.
What is really funny is I can see the police arresting someone for supposedly inciting an attack whilst not bothering to do anything to prevent the actual attack itself. Such is the state of modern law enforcement.
Like many in the public sector, they want an easy life.
For the record, most people -public or private sector, at school, retired or whatever- want an easy life.
Sure, but in the private sector you are subject to targets (real ones) and performance management.
You'll like this guy then.
In May 2026 the government announced that it had introduced performance-based pay progression for the Senior Civil Service, with those who “deliver for the public at an exceptional level being rewarded with salary increases”. In a December 2024 speech, Sir Keir Starmer had observed that “too many people in Whitehall” were “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.
Set an easy target they’re bound to achieve. Jobs a good un. Trebles all round.
Not unique to the public sector.
It's ultimately about power, rather than the business model. Those with power set themselves easy targets that the can manipulate to achieve. Those without power have impossible targets imposed on them.
Same in the private and public sectors. The only difference I've noticed is that the megabucks abuses happen in bits of the private sector where large amounts of cash are sloshing around. Usually the mechanism involves a hired hand manager behaving as if they have taken on the risks and deserve the rewards of ownership.
I’m not really that tech savvy so if it’s just down to verifying ID for the device how does each site you connect to know you’ve confirmed ID ?
Very easy to have a secure ID on the device that just recognises that.
However how does that work for shared devices?
We stream on our TVs. If I log into a TV as an adult, then my kids want to use it, what happens?
I suspect the logic goes - you have social media account, connect to it on phone, phone confirms you are x years old, social media account uses that going forward.
That's already how it works on Reddit, my account there has a flag saying I'm 18+.
So it then becomes how does the TV app handle it and I suspect it will end up
Account has confirmation that you are 18+ so can see everything and its then up to the parents to lock things down
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
How about a government ID system that verifies everything about you including age. Then you wouldn't have all these issues and it will be a trusted source.
The ban, if it actually happens given the likely change of government, will not work.
Kids are remarkably good at finding loopholes, workarounds.
The inconsistency of approach is just bad law making.
16 year olds can vote but not view a YouTube video is just ludicrous thinking
And why is Bluesky excluded from the list considering it is a Twitter dupe.
This is just Starmer trying to use his last days in office to make a splash.
The evidence from elsewhere is that it will not work. It will cut kids off from valuable resources.
It is just a headline not a properly developed policy
Burnham is likely to scrap or heavily modify it once he takes office.
16 year olds across all of the UK can’t vote yet, but will be able to soon. The proposed social media ban will allow 16 year olds to watch YouTube, although with a curfew.
BlueSky was excluded from the Australian list because so few kids use it, they didn’t bother to include it. Lots of small social media platforms were likewise not included. BlueSky took it upon themselves to follow the same rules in Australia nonetheless. And @Taz has helpfully now informed us that BlueSky will be included in the UK list.
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.
I’m not a techie, but ban the stuff that drags people in to where they shouldn’t be, but where the likes of Musk wants them to go. Publish the posts in time order, which a junk filter, like emails,
I was watching a fairly depressing tech video a while back that was drawing a line between the value of targetted advertising on social media and the 'advantage' of being able to splinter people into ever narrower bubbles so you could target your ad-spend. No matter if it's radical left, right, religion, age - just get them to click that just right washing powder link.
And being "forced" to verify your age, so that they have your exact legal identity, is "accidentally" going to be a boon for the big Tech firms and their micro-targeting of advertising.
Funny old world.
As I think about this more I am coming down more firmly on being strongly opposed to age limits, and more in favour of limits on the algorithms.
The social media crackdown is inevitable. It's not a Starmer-specific policy.
The harm done by algorithmic social media is incredibly clear, particularly on developing minds aka teenagers.
This isn't a question of free speech. No one is banning any given view. It's a question of whether we should permit an addictive substance (social media) to be used by people younger than the minimum age for buying cigarettes.
And because social media has such strong network and peer pressure effects, banning mainstream social media below a certain ages is the most effective solution.
Banning the use of the addictive algorithms would be more effective, but it would adversely affect the profits of Big Tech, so instead they've successfully lobbied for a less effective alternative under the guise of, "won't someone think of the children?!?"
And as a bonus everyone now has to hand over their legal identity before they can use their websites.
I’m not really that tech savvy so if it’s just down to verifying ID for the device how does each site you connect to know you’ve confirmed ID ?
Very easy to have a secure ID on the device that just recognises that.
However how does that work for shared devices?
We stream on our TVs. If I log into a TV as an adult, then my kids want to use it, what happens?
I suspect the logic goes - you have social media account, connect to it on phone, phone confirms you are x years old, social media account uses that going forward.
That's already how it works on Reddit, my account there has a flag saying I'm 18+.
So it then becomes how does the TV app handle it and I suspect it will end up
Account has confirmation that you are 18+ so can see everything and its then up to the parents to lock things down
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
How about a government ID system that verifies everything about you including age. Then you wouldn't have all these issues and it will be a trusted source.
That's Digitial ID and people didn't want that - so instead Apple / Google will collect and hold the information.
Russian operatives ran their sabotage and provocation campaign remotely through social media and the messaging app Telegram, we found, creating fake online far-right and Muslim groups, which were used to organise acts of vandalism in the UK and stir up division and fear.
Accounts based in Russia posted lies about the motive for the arson attacks targeting Starmer, which were spread by figures such as far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.
The social media companies don’t seem to be doing enough about this sort of thing, so I suggest government should.
According to the BBC report, the police were informed about the nefarious activities of this group, and did nothing. They broke a dozen laws, so why don't we try using those to stop the activity, rather than grabbing more power over speech to supress the resulting chatter?
The possible failings of the police don’t mean we shouldn’t also look at updating the law.
Actually they do. Why keep passing new and more draconian laws if the police won't even bother to uphold the ones we already have?
The police are oh so keen to find reasons to arrest people for incitement or hate crimes whch might cause offence but are unwilling or incapable of dealing with real crimes even when the evidence is staring them in the face.
What is really funny is I can see the police arresting someone for supposedly inciting an attack whilst not bothering to do anything to prevent the actual attack itself. Such is the state of modern law enforcement.
Like many in the public sector, they want an easy life.
For the record, most people -public or private sector, at school, retired or whatever- want an easy life.
Sure, but in the private sector you are subject to targets (real ones) and performance management.
You'll like this guy then.
In May 2026 the government announced that it had introduced performance-based pay progression for the Senior Civil Service, with those who “deliver for the public at an exceptional level being rewarded with salary increases”. In a December 2024 speech, Sir Keir Starmer had observed that “too many people in Whitehall” were “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.
Set an easy target they’re bound to achieve. Jobs a good un. Trebles all round.
Not unique to the public sector.
It's ultimately about power, rather than the business model. Those with power set themselves easy targets that the can manipulate to achieve. Those without power have impossible targets imposed on them.
Same in the private and public sectors. The only difference I've noticed is that the megabucks abuses happen in bits of the private sector where large amounts of cash are sloshing around. Usually the mechanism involves a hired hand manager behaving as if they have taken on the risks and deserve the rewards of ownership.
I never claimed it was just public sector. It’s one of those things that sounds good in theory.
The key is the setting of the target and how objective it is and if the target can be reviewed/amended. What may be a key target at the start of a year may be totally redundant a few months later.
It can be a tool to suppress rises for those not in favour too.
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
And in our present moment everyone hates their government and so the opposition is focused on the mendacity and stupidness of governments, rather than on the Tech firms. The Tech firms whose social media has made every government deeply unpopular.
Netanyahu says he will not comply with Trump’s peace deal with Iran as he doesn't see eye to eye with Trump on the issue and, hence, will strike Iran and Lebanon whenever he deems necessary in accordance with Israel's security measures.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
And in our present moment everyone hates their government and so the opposition is focused on the mendacity and stupidness of governments, rather than on the Tech firms. The Tech firms whose social media has made every government deeply unpopular.
Funny old world.
That Starmer Scandal linked to the fires... There were people here, some with actual influence, who fell for the rumours, weren't there?
And yes, people have always made up lies and spread them. But something about the setup of social media makes that more potent. Is it the veneer of anonymity? The business model based on rage because rage engages? That even a deleted lie can spread halfway round the world before anyone notices? I'm not sure- probably all of those and then some more.
I'm also not sure what can be done that leaves an incredibly profitable group of businesses viable. It's understandable to lament the fact that the bull of social media is trashing the china shop of democracy, but it's too late to close the door of the stable. Do you even keep bulls in stables?
Netanyahu says he will not comply with Trump’s peace deal with Iran as he doesn't see eye to eye with Trump on the issue and, hence, will strike Iran and Lebanon whenever he deems necessary in accordance with Israel's security measures.
He’s got an election to win. All for public consumption
Mr Iran is the big loser here. He built his reputation as a tough guy with the right approach to Iran. He fucked up. Iran emerges stronger and the regime in place. He’s going to lose to another bloodthirsty warmonger at the next election
I’m not really that tech savvy so if it’s just down to verifying ID for the device how does each site you connect to know you’ve confirmed ID ?
Very easy to have a secure ID on the device that just recognises that.
However how does that work for shared devices?
We stream on our TVs. If I log into a TV as an adult, then my kids want to use it, what happens?
I suspect the logic goes - you have social media account, connect to it on phone, phone confirms you are x years old, social media account uses that going forward.
That's already how it works on Reddit, my account there has a flag saying I'm 18+.
So it then becomes how does the TV app handle it and I suspect it will end up
Account has confirmation that you are 18+ so can see everything and its then up to the parents to lock things down
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
How about a government ID system that verifies everything about you including age. Then you wouldn't have all these issues and it will be a trusted source.
That's Digitial ID and people didn't want that - so instead Apple / Google will collect and hold the information.
It would have been perfectly possible to setup a site to issue tokens that verify only age.
You login, and get issued a token that gives your age. Nothing else. Then that is passed to sites you want to use.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
I hear on the radio that Unison is upset that they are “handing money over to the Labour Party” and their members are “getting nothing in return”
Can you imagine the outrage if a Tory donor said something that explicit?
No. You are begging the question. Complaining Unison members got nothing in return is not explicit. What any political donor wants, presumably, are broadly favourable policies or at least philosophies. That should not be controversial.
If a donor wanted specific policies, then we come closer to bribery. If there is an explicit quid pro quo, we have arrived.
That is the difference your rhetorical question overlooks. It is the difference between cash for questions or planning approvals and cash for a broadly right wing or left wing programme. So no, what Unison has said is not outrageous and nor would be a similar statement from a Conservative donor.
That said, many have called for caps on political donations because there are huge grey areas allowing the impression of impropriety.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
Those apps will have to be removed from TVs in the UK. Not sure if they can remove YouTube.
I hear on the radio that Unison is upset that they are “handing money over to the Labour Party” and their members are “getting nothing in return”
Can you imagine the outrage if a Tory donor said something that explicit?
No. You are begging the question. Complaining Unison members got nothing in return is not explicit. What any political donor wants, presumably, are broadly favourable policies or at least philosophies. That should not be controversial.
If a donor wanted specific policies, then we come closer to bribery. If there is an explicit quid pro quo, we have arrived.
That is the difference your rhetorical question overlooks. It is the difference between cash for questions or planning approvals and cash for a broadly right wing or left wing programme. So no, what Unison has said is not outrageous and nor would be a similar statement from a Conservative donor.
That said, many have called for caps on political donations because there are huge grey areas allowing the impression of impropriety.
But what exactly does she want or expect ? She didn’t say and ignores Rayners workers rights act which the unions had considerable input into.
I’m not really that tech savvy so if it’s just down to verifying ID for the device how does each site you connect to know you’ve confirmed ID ?
Very easy to have a secure ID on the device that just recognises that.
However how does that work for shared devices?
We stream on our TVs. If I log into a TV as an adult, then my kids want to use it, what happens?
I suspect the logic goes - you have social media account, connect to it on phone, phone confirms you are x years old, social media account uses that going forward.
That's already how it works on Reddit, my account there has a flag saying I'm 18+.
So it then becomes how does the TV app handle it and I suspect it will end up
Account has confirmation that you are 18+ so can see everything and its then up to the parents to lock things down
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
How about a government ID system that verifies everything about you including age. Then you wouldn't have all these issues and it will be a trusted source.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
Those apps will have to be removed from TVs in the UK. Not sure if they can remove YouTube.
It just gets more bizarre not least because you would have to deactivate all modern tvs routers and in our case EETV is all online
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
Really? Have you not paid attention to what went on in the Lords. Peers kept on putting a social media ban for young ‘uns on the schools bill. The current administration appeared to be settling for something less than a ban - indeed the rushed out the consultation (and set a short deadline) on the topic to get the schools bill through.
If anything the proposed ban is born of Starmer’s weakness not his strength. Of course he’s leaning into it now because he has to, and who knows what he really thinks (I suspect he kept his kids off social media), but personally I do not think his leading this in any meaningful way.
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
And in our present moment everyone hates their government and so the opposition is focused on the mendacity and stupidness of governments, rather than on the Tech firms. The Tech firms whose social media has made every government deeply unpopular.
Funny old world.
That Starmer Scandal linked to the fires... There were people here, some with actual influence, who fell for the rumours, weren't there?
And yes, people have always made up lies and spread them. But something about the setup of social media makes that more potent. Is it the veneer of anonymity? The business model based on rage because rage engages? That even a deleted lie can spread halfway round the world before anyone notices? I'm not sure- probably all of those and then some more.
I'm also not sure what can be done that leaves an incredibly profitable group of businesses viable. It's understandable to lament the fact that the bull of social media is trashing the china shop of democracy, but it's too late to close the door of the stable. Do you even keep bulls in stables?
The social media firms make immense profits, which is how Zuckerberg had been able to burn oodles of it on the metaverse and AI without sinking Facebook. They would be a very profitable company still even without the addictive and radicalising algorithms that do so much to create the problems and boost their profits.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
I don't think there is an issue with youtube on the family telly, there what is being watched and the hours being watched is being seen by the rest of the family.
It is the smartphone scrolling, often late into the night, and the darker content that is the issue, and it is an issue.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
Those apps will have to be removed from TVs in the UK. Not sure if they can remove YouTube.
It just gets more bizarre not least because you would have to deactivate all modern tvs routers and in our case EETV is all online
So there goes catch up services and other apps people find useful and how does it affect my TalkTalk set top box we use in the bedroom ?
YouTube to me makes no sense. It’s a fantastic resource I personally use it daily
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
And in our present moment everyone hates their government and so the opposition is focused on the mendacity and stupidness of governments, rather than on the Tech firms. The Tech firms whose social media has made every government deeply unpopular.
Funny old world.
That Starmer Scandal linked to the fires... There were people here, some with actual influence, who fell for the rumours, weren't there?
And yes, people have always made up lies and spread them. But something about the setup of social media makes that more potent. Is it the veneer of anonymity? The business model based on rage because rage engages? That even a deleted lie can spread halfway round the world before anyone notices? I'm not sure- probably all of those and then some more.
I'm also not sure what can be done that leaves an incredibly profitable group of businesses viable. It's understandable to lament the fact that the bull of social media is trashing the china shop of democracy, but it's too late to close the door of the stable. Do you even keep bulls in stables?
What happened is that the social media companies experimented to find ways to increase “engagement” - time spent on the site. So the advertisers got people spending more time looking at the adverts.
It turned out that the ideal way to increase “engagement” is a mixture of affirmation and inducing rage.
So, if you show slight interest in, Palestine, say, the algorithm dishes up content tailored to you. A mix of atrocity stuff plus voices agreeing with you - and also voices going beyond your personal position.
The later is the radicalisation spiral. You become accustomed to a certain level of anger, so the algorithm feeds you a hotter chilli.
So you get people becoming ever more extreme in a particular viewpoint, while disconnecting from other people. Angry voices in smaller and smaller groups.
Just before you go out with your sledgehammer to save the world, you buy a new robot vacuum cleaner from the advert on the right.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
Those apps will have to be removed from TVs in the UK. Not sure if they can remove YouTube.
It just gets more bizarre not least because you would have to deactivate all modern tvs routers and in our case EETV is all online
So there goes catch up services and other apps people find useful and how does it affect my TalkTalk set top box we use in the bedroom ?
YouTube to me makes no sense. It’s a fantastic resource I personally use it daily
I’m not really that tech savvy so if it’s just down to verifying ID for the device how does each site you connect to know you’ve confirmed ID ?
Very easy to have a secure ID on the device that just recognises that.
However how does that work for shared devices?
We stream on our TVs. If I log into a TV as an adult, then my kids want to use it, what happens?
I suspect the logic goes - you have social media account, connect to it on phone, phone confirms you are x years old, social media account uses that going forward.
That's already how it works on Reddit, my account there has a flag saying I'm 18+.
So it then becomes how does the TV app handle it and I suspect it will end up
Account has confirmation that you are 18+ so can see everything and its then up to the parents to lock things down
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
How about a government ID system that verifies everything about you including age. Then you wouldn't have all these issues and it will be a trusted source.
The government is not a trusted source.
You trust enough to vote for one. And pay money to it. And expect services from it.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
I don't think there is an issue with youtube on the family telly, there what is being watched and the hours being watched is being seen by the rest of the family.
It is the smartphone scrolling, often late into the night, and the darker content that is the issue, and it is an issue.
Except many kids have TVs in their room (sadly). And desktop computers with no cameras. How does that work then?
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
I don't think there is an issue with youtube on the family telly, there what is being watched and the hours being watched is being seen by the rest of the family.
It is the smartphone scrolling, often late into the night, and the darker content that is the issue, and it is an issue.
My 17 year old thinks that doom scrolling and targeted negative feedback is the problem. The later is where people end up with a feed saying that “Your life is hopeless because of X. You are worthless to society”
This is, of course, exactly how the deconstruction phase of radicalisation works. First you destroy their belief in their existing life. Then you give them a new one.
“And you turn another stone over, and it is just layers of bureaucracy which now cost us more than the product you’re getting itself. I can’t describe the level of inefficiency in the system that we’ve been left with and we’re trying to unpeel. But it’s actually exceptionally difficult to do.”
He said the current investment plan, which the new defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, has said he will publish before July’s Nato summit, was “a typical example of the machine” and that the MoD had continued to spend large amounts of money on legacy programmes that were fast becoming obsolete because of the difficulty of confronting the sunk costs.
“Take tanks for example – 100 to 200 tanks isn’t the most useful way of spending our money,” he said. “They were ordered ages ago, and if you cancel them now, that’s sunk cost … that’s cost us £700m.
“Well, I think these are the difficult discussions we have to make – the cost of running them is in the hundreds of millions, and so I would rather take that chunk of money … and put it into those innovative systems that we need to buy.”..
The army will never again field an MBT in combat, IMO.
Interestingly his resignation was not in support of Healey.
Still got mine, somewhere. The cheap plastic dividers used to cause the ink on the certificates to stick to them, so I only use it for the original rubbish that came with it.
Mind, it could have been worse. Blair and Blunkett proposed replacing it with something called ‘Progress File’ which in its design looked like something Oswald Mosley would have been proud of.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
Those apps will have to be removed from TVs in the UK. Not sure if they can remove YouTube.
It just gets more bizarre not least because you would have to deactivate all modern tvs routers and in our case EETV is all online
So there goes catch up services and other apps people find useful and how does it affect my TalkTalk set top box we use in the bedroom ?
YouTube to me makes no sense. It’s a fantastic resource I personally use it daily
The ban, if it actually happens given the likely change of government, will not work.
Kids are remarkably good at finding loopholes, workarounds.
The inconsistency of approach is just bad law making.
16 year olds can vote but not view a YouTube video is just ludicrous thinking
And why is Bluesky excluded from the list considering it is a Twitter dupe.
This is just Starmer trying to use his last days in office to make a splash.
The evidence from elsewhere is that it will not work. It will cut kids off from valuable resources.
It is just a headline not a properly developed policy
Burnham is likely to scrap or heavily modify it once he takes office.
16 year olds shouldn’t be able to vote
Have you been to Scotland where they can not only vote but can actually get married/civil partnerships. Shocking.
So long as they also let them drive, smoke, drink, serve on Juries, sign contracts and serve on the front line then I have no problem with it. It is letting them vote when we do not trust them to do all the other stuff that is wrong.
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
And in our present moment everyone hates their government and so the opposition is focused on the mendacity and stupidness of governments, rather than on the Tech firms. The Tech firms whose social media has made every government deeply unpopular.
Funny old world.
That Starmer Scandal linked to the fires... There were people here, some with actual influence, who fell for the rumours, weren't there?
And yes, people have always made up lies and spread them. But something about the setup of social media makes that more potent. Is it the veneer of anonymity? The business model based on rage because rage engages? That even a deleted lie can spread halfway round the world before anyone notices? I'm not sure- probably all of those and then some more.
I'm also not sure what can be done that leaves an incredibly profitable group of businesses viable. It's understandable to lament the fact that the bull of social media is trashing the china shop of democracy, but it's too late to close the door of the stable. Do you even keep bulls in stables?
What happened is that the social media companies experimented to find ways to increase “engagement” - time spent on the site. So the advertisers got people spending more time looking at the adverts.
It turned out that the ideal way to increase “engagement” is a mixture of affirmation and inducing rage.
So, if you show slight interest in, Palestine, say, the algorithm dishes up content tailored to you. A mix of atrocity stuff plus voices agreeing with you - and also voices going beyond your personal position.
The later is the radicalisation spiral. You become accustomed to a certain level of anger, so the algorithm feeds you a hotter chilli.
So you get people becoming ever more extreme in a particular viewpoint, while disconnecting from other people. Angry voices in smaller and smaller groups.
Just before you go out with your sledgehammer to save the world, you buy a new robot vacuum cleaner from the advert on the right.
Profit!
facebook became unusable to me because I engaged with a couple of anti-bicycle posts, and then it served me an endless series of rage-bait posts from content creators justifying death to cyclists because they were on the road. The righteous anger at car drivers did keep me scrolling for a long time the times when I fell into it, though.
Russian operatives ran their sabotage and provocation campaign remotely through social media and the messaging app Telegram, we found, creating fake online far-right and Muslim groups, which were used to organise acts of vandalism in the UK and stir up division and fear.
Accounts based in Russia posted lies about the motive for the arson attacks targeting Starmer, which were spread by figures such as far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.
The social media companies don’t seem to be doing enough about this sort of thing, so I suggest government should.
According to the BBC report, the police were informed about the nefarious activities of this group, and did nothing. They broke a dozen laws, so why don't we try using those to stop the activity, rather than grabbing more power over speech to supress the resulting chatter?
The possible failings of the police don’t mean we shouldn’t also look at updating the law.
Actually they do. Why keep passing new and more draconian laws if the police won't even bother to uphold the ones we already have?
The police are oh so keen to find reasons to arrest people for incitement or hate crimes whch might cause offence but are unwilling or incapable of dealing with real crimes even when the evidence is staring them in the face.
What is really funny is I can see the police arresting someone for supposedly inciting an attack whilst not bothering to do anything to prevent the actual attack itself. Such is the state of modern law enforcement.
Like many in the public sector, they want an easy life.
For the record, most people -public or private sector, at school, retired or whatever- want an easy life.
Sure, but in the private sector you are subject to targets (real ones) and performance management.
You'll like this guy then.
In May 2026 the government announced that it had introduced performance-based pay progression for the Senior Civil Service, with those who “deliver for the public at an exceptional level being rewarded with salary increases”. In a December 2024 speech, Sir Keir Starmer had observed that “too many people in Whitehall” were “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.
Set an easy target they’re bound to achieve. Jobs a good un. Trebles all round.
Not unique to the public sector.
It's ultimately about power, rather than the business model. Those with power set themselves easy targets that the can manipulate to achieve. Those without power have impossible targets imposed on them.
Same in the private and public sectors. The only difference I've noticed is that the megabucks abuses happen in bits of the private sector where large amounts of cash are sloshing around. Usually the mechanism involves a hired hand manager behaving as if they have taken on the risks and deserve the rewards of ownership.
This post reveals your bias.
It's not the same in the public sector. I am in it now and can confirm there are plenty here who do very little, don't perform and no-one gets sacked.
There's nothing like the commerciality and need to perform that you get in the private sector.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
I don't think there is an issue with youtube on the family telly, there what is being watched and the hours being watched is being seen by the rest of the family.
It is the smartphone scrolling, often late into the night, and the darker content that is the issue, and it is an issue.
Except many kids have TVs in their room (sadly). And desktop computers with no cameras. How does that work then?
Our 12 and 14 year old grandchildren disappear into our bedroom and access our smart TV and we have no idea what they watch but we do know YouTube has been one of the channels as they leave it on when they go home
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
I don't think there is an issue with youtube on the family telly, there what is being watched and the hours being watched is being seen by the rest of the family.
It is the smartphone scrolling, often late into the night, and the darker content that is the issue, and it is an issue.
My 17 year old thinks that doom scrolling and targeted negative feedback is the problem. The later is where people end up with a feed saying that “Your life is hopeless because of X. You are worthless to society”
This is, of course, exactly how the deconstruction phase of radicalisation works. First you destroy their belief in their existing life. Then you give them a new one.
The problem is that 10% of the content is genuinely useful (self-help tips, funny jokes, adverts for events and things of interest to you etc.)
That's why you doomscroll. You're going through all of it to find the 10%.
Yes. It wasn't that whacky, but it was a dismal failure. It was a well-meaning attempt to recognise that there was more to life than exam grades, especially for lower-achieving kids, who could compile their other 'achievements' into a record that could be shown to employers etc. It was aimed primarily at the half of all kids who didn't get good GCSEs. so would have been of no interest to anybody on PB.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
How would you ban them without this authoritarian age verification for everyone?
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
I did add TV because our grandchildren watch YouTube on our TV and of course modern smart TV access all kinds of apps
I don't think there is an issue with youtube on the family telly, there what is being watched and the hours being watched is being seen by the rest of the family.
It is the smartphone scrolling, often late into the night, and the darker content that is the issue, and it is an issue.
My 17 year old thinks that doom scrolling and targeted negative feedback is the problem. The later is where people end up with a feed saying that “Your life is hopeless because of X. You are worthless to society”
This is, of course, exactly how the deconstruction phase of radicalisation works. First you destroy their belief in their existing life. Then you give them a new one.
Yes but surely radicalisation of anyone is bad; most stabbing sprees are conducted by older men. One issue specific to children is cyberbullying (which has led to suicide) but that has nothing to do with engagement algorithms. Another is being groomed for sexual images but again, that has nothing to do with engagement algorithms.
This proposed ban is a mess because it reflects politicians' (and public's) incoherent rage against some loosely related things they do not understand but are bad.
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.
I’m not a techie, but ban the stuff that drags people in to where they shouldn’t be, but where the likes of Musk wants them to go. Publish the posts in time order, which a junk filter, like emails,
I was watching a fairly depressing tech video a while back that was drawing a line between the value of targetted advertising on social media and the 'advantage' of being able to splinter people into ever narrower bubbles so you could target your ad-spend. No matter if it's radical left, right, religion, age - just get them to click that just right washing powder link.
And being "forced" to verify your age, so that they have your exact legal identity, is "accidentally" going to be a boon for the big Tech firms and their micro-targeting of advertising.
Funny old world.
As I think about this more I am coming down more firmly on being strongly opposed to age limits, and more in favour of limits on the algorithms.
They need OffScroll and to staff it with technical experts who wrote the damn things to regulate the rules on the algorithms.
Yes, yes, I know - yet another quango with a multi-million budget- but it's a mental/civil health agency that there's a legitimate public interest in.
The ban, if it actually happens given the likely change of government, will not work.
Kids are remarkably good at finding loopholes, workarounds.
The inconsistency of approach is just bad law making.
16 year olds can vote but not view a YouTube video is just ludicrous thinking
And why is Bluesky excluded from the list considering it is a Twitter dupe.
This is just Starmer trying to use his last days in office to make a splash.
The evidence from elsewhere is that it will not work. It will cut kids off from valuable resources.
It is just a headline not a properly developed policy
Burnham is likely to scrap or heavily modify it once he takes office.
16 year olds shouldn’t be able to vote
Have you been to Scotland where they can not only vote but can actually get married/civil partnerships. Shocking.
I have, and just because the Scottish government chose to do something stupid because they thought it would secure extra votes for the SNP doesn’t mean we should copy them
Russian operatives ran their sabotage and provocation campaign remotely through social media and the messaging app Telegram, we found, creating fake online far-right and Muslim groups, which were used to organise acts of vandalism in the UK and stir up division and fear.
Accounts based in Russia posted lies about the motive for the arson attacks targeting Starmer, which were spread by figures such as far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.
The social media companies don’t seem to be doing enough about this sort of thing, so I suggest government should.
According to the BBC report, the police were informed about the nefarious activities of this group, and did nothing. They broke a dozen laws, so why don't we try using those to stop the activity, rather than grabbing more power over speech to supress the resulting chatter?
The possible failings of the police don’t mean we shouldn’t also look at updating the law.
Actually they do. Why keep passing new and more draconian laws if the police won't even bother to uphold the ones we already have?
The police are oh so keen to find reasons to arrest people for incitement or hate crimes whch might cause offence but are unwilling or incapable of dealing with real crimes even when the evidence is staring them in the face.
What is really funny is I can see the police arresting someone for supposedly inciting an attack whilst not bothering to do anything to prevent the actual attack itself. Such is the state of modern law enforcement.
Like many in the public sector, they want an easy life.
For the record, most people -public or private sector, at school, retired or whatever- want an easy life.
Sure, but in the private sector you are subject to targets (real ones) and performance management.
You'll like this guy then.
In May 2026 the government announced that it had introduced performance-based pay progression for the Senior Civil Service, with those who “deliver for the public at an exceptional level being rewarded with salary increases”. In a December 2024 speech, Sir Keir Starmer had observed that “too many people in Whitehall” were “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.
Set an easy target they’re bound to achieve. Jobs a good un. Trebles all round.
Not unique to the public sector.
It's ultimately about power, rather than the business model. Those with power set themselves easy targets that the can manipulate to achieve. Those without power have impossible targets imposed on them.
Same in the private and public sectors. The only difference I've noticed is that the megabucks abuses happen in bits of the private sector where large amounts of cash are sloshing around. Usually the mechanism involves a hired hand manager behaving as if they have taken on the risks and deserve the rewards of ownership.
This post reveals your bias.
It's not the same in the public sector. I am in it now and can confirm there are plenty here who do very little, don't perform and no-one gets sacked.
There's nothing like the commerciality and need to perform that you get in the private sector.
You get weak management and poor organisation in the private sector that lets underperforming people fall through the cracks too.
And I've come across managers in the public sector that didn't tolerate poor performance.
Netanyahu says he will not comply with Trump’s peace deal with Iran as he doesn't see eye to eye with Trump on the issue and, hence, will strike Iran and Lebanon whenever he deems necessary in accordance with Israel's security measures.
He’s got an election to win. All for public consumption
Mr Iran is the big loser here. He built his reputation as a tough guy with the right approach to Iran. He fucked up. Iran emerges stronger and the regime in place. He’s going to lose to another bloodthirsty warmonger at the next election
Is that not him into double figures at stopping wars though, a genius
The ban, if it actually happens given the likely change of government, will not work.
Kids are remarkably good at finding loopholes, workarounds.
The inconsistency of approach is just bad law making.
16 year olds can vote but not view a YouTube video is just ludicrous thinking
And why is Bluesky excluded from the list considering it is a Twitter dupe.
This is just Starmer trying to use his last days in office to make a splash.
The evidence from elsewhere is that it will not work. It will cut kids off from valuable resources.
It is just a headline not a properly developed policy
Burnham is likely to scrap or heavily modify it once he takes office.
16 year olds shouldn’t be able to vote
Have you been to Scotland where they can not only vote but can actually get married/civil partnerships. Shocking.
I have, and just because the Scottish government chose to do something stupid because they thought it would secure extra votes for the SNP doesn’t mean we should copy them
Idiot
Morning Malc
On votes for 16 and 17 year old kids I think he’s right.
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.
I’m not a techie, but ban the stuff that drags people in to where they shouldn’t be, but where the likes of Musk wants them to go. Publish the posts in time order, which a junk filter, like emails,
I was watching a fairly depressing tech video a while back that was drawing a line between the value of targetted advertising on social media and the 'advantage' of being able to splinter people into ever narrower bubbles so you could target your ad-spend. No matter if it's radical left, right, religion, age - just get them to click that just right washing powder link.
And being "forced" to verify your age, so that they have your exact legal identity, is "accidentally" going to be a boon for the big Tech firms and their micro-targeting of advertising.
Funny old world.
As I think about this more I am coming down more firmly on being strongly opposed to age limits, and more in favour of limits on the algorithms.
Netanyahu says he will not comply with Trump’s peace deal with Iran as he doesn't see eye to eye with Trump on the issue and, hence, will strike Iran and Lebanon whenever he deems necessary in accordance with Israel's security measures.
He’s got an election to win. All for public consumption
Mr Iran is the big loser here. He built his reputation as a tough guy with the right approach to Iran. He fucked up. Iran emerges stronger and the regime in place. He’s going to lose to another bloodthirsty warmonger at the next election
Is that not him into double figures at stopping wars though, a genius
I think he means Bibi, not The Donald. Netanyahu has spent the last several decades warning that Iran's deployment of nuclear weapons is imminent. Trump has ended the Iran war with his last 39 peace plans.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
And will that apply to TV
I strongly suspect that the under-16s will find a workaround or five within 24 hours. The policy is much more likely to end up banning not-very-techie oldies like me.
A few observations: - yes, weird - that poor kid is either tired or quite inarticulate for her age (or my six year old girl and others I know areunusual) - my six year old doesn't know what YouTube is - she sometimes gets shown videos on phone/tablet/TV but has no idea of the platform and no direct interaction with it - if I told her about an impending ban, she'd ask what YouTube was!
It's just odd, right. This doesn't stop a six year old being shown YouTube videos under supervision. It stops them having their own account (T&Cs probably already do anyway, in theory?) and navigating around it herself into some hellish rabbit hole. No 6 year old should be getting unmanaged access to YouTube or other social media. A conervation with a 14-15 year old might be interesting.
A few observations: - yes, weird - that poor kid is either tired or quite inarticulate for her age (or my six year old girl and others I know areunusual) - my six year old doesn't know what YouTube is - she sometimes gets shown videos on phone/tablet/TV but has no idea of the platform and no direct interaction with it - if I told her about an impending ban, she'd ask what YouTube was!
It's just odd, right. This doesn't stop a six year old being shown YouTube videos under supervision. It stops them having their own account (T&Cs probably already do anyway, in theory?) and navigating around it herself into some hellish rabbit hole. No 6 year old should be getting unmanaged access to YouTube or other social media. A conervation with a 14-15 year old might be interesting.
Russian operatives ran their sabotage and provocation campaign remotely through social media and the messaging app Telegram, we found, creating fake online far-right and Muslim groups, which were used to organise acts of vandalism in the UK and stir up division and fear.
Accounts based in Russia posted lies about the motive for the arson attacks targeting Starmer, which were spread by figures such as far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.
The social media companies don’t seem to be doing enough about this sort of thing, so I suggest government should.
According to the BBC report, the police were informed about the nefarious activities of this group, and did nothing. They broke a dozen laws, so why don't we try using those to stop the activity, rather than grabbing more power over speech to supress the resulting chatter?
The possible failings of the police don’t mean we shouldn’t also look at updating the law.
Actually they do. Why keep passing new and more draconian laws if the police won't even bother to uphold the ones we already have?
The police are oh so keen to find reasons to arrest people for incitement or hate crimes whch might cause offence but are unwilling or incapable of dealing with real crimes even when the evidence is staring them in the face.
What is really funny is I can see the police arresting someone for supposedly inciting an attack whilst not bothering to do anything to prevent the actual attack itself. Such is the state of modern law enforcement.
Like many in the public sector, they want an easy life.
For the record, most people -public or private sector, at school, retired or whatever- want an easy life.
Sure, but in the private sector you are subject to targets (real ones) and performance management.
You'll like this guy then.
In May 2026 the government announced that it had introduced performance-based pay progression for the Senior Civil Service, with those who “deliver for the public at an exceptional level being rewarded with salary increases”. In a December 2024 speech, Sir Keir Starmer had observed that “too many people in Whitehall” were “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”.
Set an easy target they’re bound to achieve. Jobs a good un. Trebles all round.
Not unique to the public sector.
It's ultimately about power, rather than the business model. Those with power set themselves easy targets that the can manipulate to achieve. Those without power have impossible targets imposed on them.
Same in the private and public sectors. The only difference I've noticed is that the megabucks abuses happen in bits of the private sector where large amounts of cash are sloshing around. Usually the mechanism involves a hired hand manager behaving as if they have taken on the risks and deserve the rewards of ownership.
This post reveals your bias.
It's not the same in the public sector. I am in it now and can confirm there are plenty here who do very little, don't perform and no-one gets sacked.
There's nothing like the commerciality and need to perform that you get in the private sector.
It's a very different environment as you are there to deliver the decisions of a sovereign parliament and legislators elected by the public.
Personally the problem is with the quality of politicians and their willingness to ignore the advice of some highly competent civil service staff - and I would include you in that.
(Took me 9 months to escape (HMRC). How long do you think you can suffer?)
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.
I’m not a techie, but ban the stuff that drags people in to where they shouldn’t be, but where the likes of Musk wants them to go. Publish the posts in time order, which a junk filter, like emails,
I was watching a fairly depressing tech video a while back that was drawing a line between the value of targetted advertising on social media and the 'advantage' of being able to splinter people into ever narrower bubbles so you could target your ad-spend. No matter if it's radical left, right, religion, age - just get them to click that just right washing powder link.
And being "forced" to verify your age, so that they have your exact legal identity, is "accidentally" going to be a boon for the big Tech firms and their micro-targeting of advertising.
Funny old world.
As I think about this more I am coming down more firmly on being strongly opposed to age limits, and more in favour of limits on the algorithms.
Agree with this.
I expect there’ll be much lobbying by the big tech companies and rent seeking going on.
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?
If the mobile phone company promoted/rewarded making threatening calls, provided guidance and a list of vulnerable people to target? Maybe
(That's me saying that I don't think the comparison works well)
A few observations: - yes, weird - that poor kid is either tired or quite inarticulate for her age (or my six year old girl and others I know areunusual) - my six year old doesn't know what YouTube is - she sometimes gets shown videos on phone/tablet/TV but has no idea of the platform and no direct interaction with it - if I told her about an impending ban, she'd ask what YouTube was!
It's just odd, right. This doesn't stop a six year old being shown YouTube videos under supervision. It stops them having their own account (T&Cs probably already do anyway, in theory?) and navigating around it herself into some hellish rabbit hole. No 6 year old should be getting unmanaged access to YouTube or other social media. A conervation with a 14-15 year old might be interesting.
“And you turn another stone over, and it is just layers of bureaucracy which now cost us more than the product you’re getting itself. I can’t describe the level of inefficiency in the system that we’ve been left with and we’re trying to unpeel. But it’s actually exceptionally difficult to do.”
He said the current investment plan, which the new defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, has said he will publish before July’s Nato summit, was “a typical example of the machine” and that the MoD had continued to spend large amounts of money on legacy programmes that were fast becoming obsolete because of the difficulty of confronting the sunk costs.
“Take tanks for example – 100 to 200 tanks isn’t the most useful way of spending our money,” he said. “They were ordered ages ago, and if you cancel them now, that’s sunk cost … that’s cost us £700m.
“Well, I think these are the difficult discussions we have to make – the cost of running them is in the hundreds of millions, and so I would rather take that chunk of money … and put it into those innovative systems that we need to buy.”..
The army will never again field an MBT in combat, IMO.
Interestingly his resignation was not in support of Healey.
"How has that been allowed to go on"? Asks Carns.
He is an MP and until five minutes ago was a minister in the MOD. But hasn't yet understood that it is our task, the tax paying voters, to ask those questions, and the task of MPs, government and ministers to answer them by telling us and solving them.
We are two years in to this Labour government. We don't expect a problem free country, but we expect a plan and good communication of it. And on a multitude of key issues we still don't have any idea of the plan for where we are going and how we are going to get there.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
And will that apply to TV
I strongly suspect that the under-16s will find a workaround or five within 24 hours. The policy is much more likely to end up banning not-very-techie oldies like me.
I agree. The government's instinct to impose bans is illiberal, futile and bristling with unintended consequences.
"quite young children because most of them now had a mobile phone along with other digital devices"
And these fell out of the sky into their hands did they?
Parents have a responsibility for their children and if they don't want young children spending time on their phones they shouldn't bloody well give them one. Schools can ban smartphones.
All this talk about children is a distraction. This policy is to control adults' access and to eliminate our privacy and anonymity.
The ban, if it actually happens given the likely change of government, will not work.
Kids are remarkably good at finding loopholes, workarounds.
The inconsistency of approach is just bad law making.
16 year olds can vote but not view a YouTube video is just ludicrous thinking
And why is Bluesky excluded from the list considering it is a Twitter dupe.
This is just Starmer trying to use his last days in office to make a splash.
The evidence from elsewhere is that it will not work. It will cut kids off from valuable resources.
It is just a headline not a properly developed policy
Burnham is likely to scrap or heavily modify it once he takes office.
16 year olds shouldn’t be able to vote
Have you been to Scotland where they can not only vote but can actually get married/civil partnerships. Shocking.
I have, and just because the Scottish government chose to do something stupid because they thought it would secure extra votes for the SNP doesn’t mean we should copy them
Idiot
Morning Malc
On votes for 16 and 17 year old kids I think he’s right.
I think I've come round to votes for 16 and 17 year olds.
Granted, at present, they all seem to intend to vote Green or Reform. But that's because the grown up parties offer them noting but debt and homelessness. The reason our priorities are skewed to those of the old over the young is because the old have votes, the young do not. A system in which the young had votes wouldn't have come up a world in which the young have to enter their lives with £50k+ of debt and no prospect of home ownership.
Just looking at the World Cup betting this morning, I see Scotland are rated a 22% chance to be eliminated in the group stage. I don't want to be negative about their prospects, but I feel that's a tad low. The betting suggests they are a 39% chance to lose to Morocco and Brazil.
Of the other groups, only the Belgium group looks good for Scotland. Five of the other six could easily see the third place team have four points and I wouldn't right off Ecuador from getting four points in the other group. And even if they lose to Germany, I feel Ecuador have more chance of having a better goal difference than Scotland. And then there are four more groups to come.
Also, they are at a disadvantage in being in an early group. The rest get to see what they need to do.
The ban, if it actually happens given the likely change of government, will not work.
Kids are remarkably good at finding loopholes, workarounds.
The inconsistency of approach is just bad law making.
16 year olds can vote but not view a YouTube video is just ludicrous thinking
And why is Bluesky excluded from the list considering it is a Twitter dupe.
This is just Starmer trying to use his last days in office to make a splash.
The evidence from elsewhere is that it will not work. It will cut kids off from valuable resources.
It is just a headline not a properly developed policy
Burnham is likely to scrap or heavily modify it once he takes office.
16 year olds shouldn’t be able to vote
Have you been to Scotland where they can not only vote but can actually get married/civil partnerships. Shocking.
I have, and just because the Scottish government chose to do something stupid because they thought it would secure extra votes for the SNP doesn’t mean we should copy them
Idiot
Morning Malc
On votes for 16 and 17 year old kids I think he’s right.
Comments
Can you imagine the outrage if a Tory donor said something that explicit?
and I guess Rayners so-called workers rights bill isn’t enough for Unite ?
What more do they actually want ?
However how does that work for shared devices?
We stream on our TVs. If I log into a TV as an adult, then my kids want to use it, what happens?
Given YouTube has been eating into linear TVs viewers for years now and is bigger than most TV channels in terms of viewership I’m not surprised the legacy media is fully behind a move that nobbles competition.
Marvellous.
That's already how it works on Reddit, my account there has a flag saying I'm 18+.
So it then becomes how does the TV app handle it and I suspect it will end up
Account has confirmation that you are 18+ so can see everything and its then up to the parents to lock things down
So yes the plan is not much use - but its what Meta and co have lobbied for (remember that fact) and already implemented because the other options are to Meta and Tiktok very expensive..
Since the school leaving age is now 18 we seem to have this strange idea that they can vote but can't drink, smoke, drive, leave education but can vote - it's stupid electoral age related gerrymandering and is probably not going to give Labour what they hoped for.
16-18 voting intents could well have tended labour because the previous Government was Tory and they couldn't vote..
It's ultimately about power, rather than the business model. Those with power set themselves easy targets that the can manipulate to achieve. Those without power have impossible targets imposed on them.
Same in the private and public sectors. The only difference I've noticed is that the megabucks abuses happen in bits of the private sector where large amounts of cash are sloshing around. Usually the mechanism involves a hired hand manager behaving as if they have taken on the risks and deserve the rewards of ownership.
BlueSky was excluded from the Australian list because so few kids use it, they didn’t bother to include it. Lots of small social media platforms were likewise not included. BlueSky took it upon themselves to follow the same rules in Australia nonetheless. And @Taz has helpfully now informed us that BlueSky will be included in the UK list.
Funny old world.
As I think about this more I am coming down more firmly on being strongly opposed to age limits, and more in favour of limits on the algorithms.
And as a bonus everyone now has to hand over their legal identity before they can use their websites.
The key is the setting of the target and how objective it is and if the target can be reviewed/amended. What may be a key target at the start of a year may be totally redundant a few months later.
It can be a tool to suppress rises for those not in favour too.
Sales Marketing and operation costs alone were higher than revenue before you see $19bn in research (new model costs).
https://www.wheresyoured.at/exclusive-openai-financials/
Funny old world.
Netanyahu says he will not comply with Trump’s peace deal with Iran as he doesn't see eye to eye with Trump on the issue and, hence, will strike Iran and Lebanon whenever he deems necessary in accordance with Israel's security measures.
I support banning under 16s from social media, but if everyone needs age verification for their online activity and every time they go on individual sites it will be chaos
And will that apply to TV
Starmer's bizarre love for digital ID and a scrap of popularity is leading to this deranged bullshit.
And yes, people have always made up lies and spread them. But something about the setup of social media makes that more potent. Is it the veneer of anonymity? The business model based on rage because rage engages? That even a deleted lie can spread halfway round the world before anyone notices? I'm not sure- probably all of those and then some more.
I'm also not sure what can be done that leaves an incredibly profitable group of businesses viable. It's understandable to lament the fact that the bull of social media is trashing the china shop of democracy, but it's too late to close the door of the stable. Do you even keep bulls in stables?
Mr Iran is the big loser here. He built his reputation as a tough guy with the right approach to Iran. He fucked up. Iran emerges stronger and the regime in place. He’s going to lose to another bloodthirsty warmonger at the next election
You login, and get issued a token that gives your age. Nothing else. Then that is passed to sites you want to use.
Indeed, that has been suggested to policy makers.
But the Home Office types hate anonymity.
If a donor wanted specific policies, then we come closer to bribery. If there is an explicit quid pro quo, we have arrived.
That is the difference your rhetorical question overlooks. It is the difference between cash for questions or planning approvals and cash for a broadly right wing or left wing programme. So no, what Unison has said is not outrageous and nor would be a similar statement from a Conservative donor.
That said, many have called for caps on political donations because there are huge grey areas allowing the impression of impropriety.
If anything the proposed ban is born of Starmer’s weakness not his strength. Of course he’s leaning into it now because he has to, and who knows what he really thinks (I suspect he kept his kids off social media), but personally I do not think his leading this in any meaningful way.
Don't ban kids. Bang the algorithms.
It is the smartphone scrolling, often late into the night, and the darker content that is the issue, and it is an issue.
YouTube to me makes no sense. It’s a fantastic resource I personally use it daily
It turned out that the ideal way to increase “engagement” is a mixture of affirmation and inducing rage.
So, if you show slight interest in, Palestine, say, the algorithm dishes up content tailored to you. A mix of atrocity stuff plus voices agreeing with you - and also voices going beyond your personal position.
The later is the radicalisation spiral. You become accustomed to a certain level of anger, so the algorithm feeds you a hotter chilli.
So you get people becoming ever more extreme in a particular viewpoint, while disconnecting from other people. Angry voices in smaller and smaller groups.
Just before you go out with your sledgehammer to save the world, you buy a new robot vacuum cleaner from the advert on the right.
Profit!
If not, why are you here?
This is, of course, exactly how the deconstruction phase of radicalisation works. First you destroy their belief in their existing life. Then you give them a new one.
(Though someone needs to explain to him the meaning of 'unbelievable'.)
‘Unbelievable’ waste and inefficiency at MoD, says ex-defence minister Al Carns
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/jun/16/unbelievable-waste-inefficiency-ministry-defence-al-carns
..He said despite his time in the MoD before becoming an MP, he had been shocked at the inefficiency. “It is unbelievable. You turn a stone over and get another shock – how has that been allowed to go on?
“And you turn another stone over, and it is just layers of bureaucracy which now cost us more than the product you’re getting itself. I can’t describe the level of inefficiency in the system that we’ve been left with and we’re trying to unpeel. But it’s actually exceptionally difficult to do.”
He said the current investment plan, which the new defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, has said he will publish before July’s Nato summit, was “a typical example of the machine” and that the MoD had continued to spend large amounts of money on legacy programmes that were fast becoming obsolete because of the difficulty of confronting the sunk costs.
“Take tanks for example – 100 to 200 tanks isn’t the most useful way of spending our money,” he said. “They were ordered ages ago, and if you cancel them now, that’s sunk cost … that’s cost us £700m.
“Well, I think these are the difficult discussions we have to make – the cost of running them is in the hundreds of millions, and so I would rather take that chunk of money … and put it into those innovative systems that we need to buy.”..
The army will never again field an MBT in combat, IMO.
Interestingly his resignation was not in support of Healey.
Mind, it could have been worse. Blair and Blunkett proposed replacing it with something called ‘Progress File’ which in its design looked like something Oswald Mosley would have been proud of.
It's not the same in the public sector. I am in it now and can confirm there are plenty here who do very little, don't perform and no-one gets sacked.
There's nothing like the commerciality and need to perform that you get in the private sector.
That's why you doomscroll. You're going through all of it to find the 10%.
This proposed ban is a mess because it reflects politicians' (and public's) incoherent rage against some loosely related things they do not understand but are bad.
Yes, yes, I know - yet another quango with a multi-million budget- but it's a mental/civil health agency that there's a legitimate public interest in.
And I've come across managers in the public sector that didn't tolerate poor performance.
There are differences in degree, though.
On votes for 16 and 17 year old kids I think he’s right.
- yes, weird
- that poor kid is either tired or quite inarticulate for her age (or my six year old girl and others I know areunusual)
- my six year old doesn't know what YouTube is - she sometimes gets shown videos on phone/tablet/TV but has no idea of the platform and no direct interaction with it - if I told her about an impending ban, she'd ask what YouTube was!
It's just odd, right. This doesn't stop a six year old being shown YouTube videos under supervision. It stops them having their own account (T&Cs probably already do anyway, in theory?) and navigating around it herself into some hellish rabbit hole. No 6 year old should be getting unmanaged access to YouTube or other social media. A conervation with a 14-15 year old might be interesting.
Personally the problem is with the quality of politicians and their willingness to ignore the advice of some highly competent civil service staff - and I would include you in that.
(Took me 9 months to escape (HMRC). How long do you think you can suffer?)
I expect there’ll be much lobbying by the big tech companies and rent seeking going on.
(That's me saying that I don't think the comparison works well)
He is an MP and until five minutes ago was a minister in the MOD. But hasn't yet understood that it is our task, the tax paying voters, to ask those questions, and the task of MPs, government and ministers to answer them by telling us and solving them.
We are two years in to this Labour government. We don't expect a problem free country, but we expect a plan and good communication of it. And on a multitude of key issues we still don't have any idea of the plan for where we are going and how we are going to get there.
And these fell out of the sky into their hands did they?
Parents have a responsibility for their children and if they don't want young children spending time on their phones they shouldn't bloody well give them one. Schools can ban smartphones.
All this talk about children is a distraction. This policy is to control adults' access and to eliminate our privacy and anonymity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKXgeNwNRJ4 (40mins)
Granted, at present, they all seem to intend to vote Green or Reform. But that's because the grown up parties offer them noting but debt and homelessness. The reason our priorities are skewed to those of the old over the young is because the old have votes, the young do not. A system in which the young had votes wouldn't have come up a world in which the young have to enter their lives with £50k+ of debt and no prospect of home ownership.
NEW THREAD
Of the other groups, only the Belgium group looks good for Scotland. Five of the other six could easily see the third place team have four points and I wouldn't right off Ecuador from getting four points in the other group. And even if they lose to Germany, I feel Ecuador have more chance of having a better goal difference than Scotland. And then there are four more groups to come.
Also, they are at a disadvantage in being in an early group. The rest get to see what they need to do.
As ever, DYOR.