UK Brings in Full Social Media Ban for Under-16s

anotherhue

Feels heavy handed, but the brain-rot seems to be quite real, so I don't see a better option.

aledevv

> “Children will be given back their childhoods,” As a parent, I completely agree. We need to protect children from the dangers of the completely uncontrolled "jungle" of social media. But above all, we need to give children back the right to experience a true, real childhood, made up of true friends, fresh air, friendships, and real relationships!

shawabawa3

Headline makes it sound like this has taken effect. It's just been announced Might start taking effect in spring 2027

budududuroiu

Huge win for surveillance capitalism. If Agentic AI is the future of online interaction, shopping, etc., a signal of "this is a verified human being" is golden to advertisers.

shevy-java

The mandatory age sniffing will soon start as well. After all, the government wants to watch everyone, to verify your age now. Gone are the days of anonymity - they want to know your every move.

nickslaughter02

...by ID checking everybody. Big Tech loves this. > Google Wants to Be the ID Checkpoint for Europe’s Internet https://reclaimthenet.org/google-wants-to-be-the-id-checkpoi...

matthewmorgan

I presume I'll be forced to dox myself for free to use those platforms?

JuniperMesos

If I was someone under the age of 16 in the UK I would absolutely attempt to circumvent this ban myself; and I'm happy to contribute to software that facilitates kids in the UK circumventing it.

AltruisticGapHN

YouTube seems a little much. Plenty of examples of bright kids who learn coding or electronics at a very young age, no doubt having access to YT is a big part of it. Hmm I guess those kids would use their parents account or something like that.

kaelyx

This should be a parental decision, not a governmental one. UK parents are just offloading raising their kids.

yanis_t

I grown up in the 1990s, so as a teen I had access to the wild west of the decentralized internet in all its scary glory. It was pretty cool. But nowadays as a parent I see, instagram, tiktok are much more scarier for the damage they make psychologically and mentally to our kids. And with the AI slop it's only going to go downhill. So yes, it's a great decision, and other countries should follow the lead.

r721

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48527766

metalman

ok, now guarantee that they get a library within walking distance, a bicycle a place to use it, and keep it, brick and mortor stores that have kids stuff for hobby and interest, parks, playgrounds, and police that call them "mam" and "sir", or, or, wait just keep them inside with an electronic monitoring device that cuts them off from there peers.

PUSH_AX

Social media in it's current state is harmful. So I'm all for this.

richsouth

I'm guessing that as an adult I'm going to have to show my passport / drivers licence or something else to go on YouTube now? Stuff that.

guilhas

> “Children will be given back their childhoods,” Taking options away from children will not make their lives better just by itself And this social media ban might only move the conversation to less transparent channels WhatsApp and Telegram know more about children than their parents And child can still spend all doing unhealthy stuff. YouTube kids is addictive enough, at home watching Netflix, playing video games, tablet/phone addictive games... So the only real solution is force companies to provide better parental controls, maybe aided by AI And force companies to add better controls/defaults for the population in general to reduce addictive features

ChrisArchitect

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48537709 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48527766

ghusto

So much ambivalence. On the one hand: _Some_ kind of action is long overdue. For once "protect the children" is actually a valid argument (we should protect the adults too, but baby-steps ...). On the other hand: Technical people can see this is going nowhere good.

remarkEon

> Ofcom, which has powers to enforce online safety regulation, will conduct a rapid study on what is effective age assurance for verifying whether someone is over 16, while it is being asked to publish a “clear enforcement strategy.” Just so we’re all clear about what this particular social media ban is about. It’s about adults, and connecting a real name and face to online activity at the state-issued identification layer. I’m generally supportive of things like banning smartphones from schools, which is certainly an option the UK could’ve pursued, but this is coming at a time when social media is getting the blame for behavior of adults. Much easier to limit politically annoying voices of citizens when they have to authenticate through the state before logging in to speak.

Lio

Digital ID by the backdoor is here. Couldn't get it through the first or second times, just dress it up in "think of the children" rhetoric and run it from the Ofcom quango.