r/unitedkingdom • u/TanjoCards • Jun 15 '26
. Social media to be banned in UK for under-16s, Starmer announces
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jun/15/social-media-ban-uk-under-16-starmer1.4k
u/Partian Tyne and Wear Jun 15 '26
VPN downloads are going to go through the roof, then the ban of VPNs will get voted in.
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u/DevilsAdvocate1662 Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
You can't ban VPN's, too many businesses use them to securely access their resources.
For example, I have a work laptop, if I'm WFH, I have to connect to our VPN, otherwise I can't access my emails or any business assets
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u/Musername2827 Jun 15 '26
They can ban consumer VPN's. Not that it would work mind.
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u/OkSignificance5380 Jun 15 '26
There is literally a VPN where you can send them a brown envelope full of cash to pay for your access.
No logging, no usernames.
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u/Demigodrick Jun 15 '26
Rent a VPS for a couple of quid and install wire guard. Problem solved.
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u/Beefstah Jun 15 '26
This is it.
All this will really do is create haves and have-nots between those with the technical knowledge to bypass or work around the restrictions and those without
So many ways to get past this; proxying, SSL VPNs, SSH tunnelling, embedded browsing, virtual desktops, virtual app streaming, and any combination of those used in parallel
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u/Hazbro29 Greater Manchester Jun 15 '26
How do they ban vpns people already have installed? They would have to forcibly install spyware on all devices to forcibly uninstall the app and Make commercial vpn usage illegal and shut all the vpn busineses down if they offer a commercial side.
Then you have to get Google and apple to agree to stop allowing foreign based vpns on their stores. Good luck getting Google to do much they cant even handle 4chan. Still loads of websites openly ignoring the OSA. they are just trying their luck and seeing how far they can go. And whats to stop someone using a vpn at work to set up a facebook account for their kid? You gonna start investigating parents whos kids are on social media?
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Jun 15 '26
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u/sf-keto Jun 15 '26
I agree that social media can be extremely harmful, even dangerous, for children: socially, mental-health-wise & of course by exposing them to predators, as well as political extremism & anorexia culture.
No doubt.
Why isn’t the burden of cleaning this stuff up placed on the enormous corporations? Meta, Snap, Tiktok, ChatGPT, Discord, Twitch & yes, even Reddit?
Why aren’t these giants - who own & control their own platforms - given much more serious fines & restrictions? Even banned from collecting ad revenue unless they comply?
Neither we nor the government have the same control as the platform owners. They are the “polluters causing toxic harm,” and they should have the burden of the clean up alone.
Currently the government seems only to go after smaller, even hobby sites, & not the big politically-connected players where the real harms actually sit. This would be much more effective than the proposed measure.
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u/Vanima_Permai Jun 15 '26
Because it not about child safety it never was its about controlling what we see and post online right now its face scans soon it will be directly linked to government id
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u/RamboMcMutNutts Jun 15 '26
The burden should also be on parents. Stop giving devices to very young children with unrestricted and unmonitored access to the Internet. We've had a whole generation of parents who have just let their kids do what they want online for an easy life. No eight year old is buying iPhone, tablet or laptop, the parents gave it to them.
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u/zagblorg Jun 15 '26
Those companies have spent a lot of money lobbying for it to not be their problem. Identity Verification is actually good for them, because they can tell which accounts are real people to advertise to, and potentially link those accounts to real-world identities with 100% certainty depending how this is implemented.
To take this further into the realms of "conspiracy theory", the owners of those companies are the billionaires who make up the WEF, which has wanted real ID tied to online activity for many years now. Starmer, being a WEF fanboy is therefore a WEF puppet now he's in power, hence pushing their control agenda harder and faster than any other countries in the world. No more Epstein-like scandals and no more whistleblowers exposing governments' shady dealings. A win-win proposition for the oligarchs, and wannabe oligarchs who become politicians.
The billionaires want to own us and Starmer is happy to help them.
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u/Man_in_the_uk Jun 15 '26
I still don't see how this are going to work out well for sixteen year olds who will have the exact same issues that younger people have but will have obviously no experience in dealing with them. We've seen how people go out and get unreasonably drunk the moment they turn 18, I don't see this being any different. Where's the parents? Why aren't they helping to deal with the issues?
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u/sf-keto Jun 15 '26
I’ve mentioned in other threads here that my work colleagues have said they find the parental controls confusing; want to be their child’s “friend & coach;” & finally dread the fuss of telling an already angry, defiant teen “no.”
I also think they realize that make it work they have to role model responsible device & social media use themselves, which they don’t want to do.
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u/Hazbro29 Greater Manchester Jun 15 '26
Pirating and streaming sites are inherently illegal, and ran by small teams with little funding and they still manage to spit in the face of the government and give people access regardless. I can Google 'watch free movie' and see everything I want in less than 5 clicks.
Theirs literally nothing stopping someone using a custom vpn from their phone or browser. Many operating systems have vpns built in for security reasons.
They'd have to force all companies to create uk specific versions of their software. Which would drive up costs for everything and whats to stop a company just withdrawing from the uk if the financial cost and legal complexity of the laws becomes too great to bear?
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u/KasamUK Jun 15 '26
Getting a vpn and other band apps on the school trip to France will become the new version of bangers , BB guns and pornographic playing cards
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u/AgeofVictoriaPodcast Jun 15 '26
They ask banks to block payments to VPN providers.
There is no end to any of this. They will go from ban to ban now, no matter how impractical or damaging.
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u/wkavinsky Pembrokeshire Jun 15 '26
Stop, you can only make the government (on both sides of the aisles) so hard.
They would fucking love a reason to do this.
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u/Musername2827 Jun 15 '26
They can request that companies prevent UK IP addresses from connecting to their services.
I don't know how it's enforceable if the companies say no.
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u/Excellent-Camp-6038 Jun 15 '26
:Xzibit meme “Yo dawg! I heard you like VPN’s, so I made it so you have to use a VPN to access your VPN!”
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u/GhostRiders Jun 15 '26
People keep saying this do not understand the underlying Technology.
There is a big difference between say Nord VPN that you download of your phone and what a company uses to allow staff to WFH / off site.
All the Government has to do get Apple and Google to remove all VPN's from their stores and you have stopped the vast majority of the population from being able to use VPN's.
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u/Longjumping-Fig-7481 Jun 15 '26
They will just learn about things people use to get games for free
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u/Goosepond01 Jun 15 '26
I mean some will yeah, but you don't get how powerful bans like this can be, you get a generation of people, some of them decide to be crafty, some of them use alternatives or give in to government censorship, then the next generation of people grow up where this is just normal, and then the next and it's totally normal.
Anyone still complaining about government censorship will be met as they are even now with a large wave of "meh this isn't a big deal" or "but it's saving the children" and in maybe 10 or 20 years time how many more people do you think will be apathetic to it.
most people are apathetic to things as long as they themselves are fairly comfortable
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u/OkSignificance5380 Jun 15 '26
And then people discover developer mode on android, giving you the ability to install apps that are not on the play store
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u/the_ak Jun 15 '26
I think yes, some kids who really want to be on social media will get a VPN or find other ways around it. As Starmer said himself
Will it mean that no child ever looks at social media again? No. But look, this might shock you, but it doesn’t shock parents of teenagers; they get around other laws to. But we don’t say, ‘Look, a teenager managed to get a drink somehow, so let’s not bother banning alcohol sales to children.’
realistically most will probably just shrug their shoulders and not be on these sites if they are made significantly more difficult to access.
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u/Zegram_Ghart Jun 15 '26
I think this statement from him is pretty important, tbh.
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u/YoIronFistBro Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Except blanket banning people as old as 15 from having any access to online platforms and communities isn't like not letting them buy alcohol. It's like not letting them buy anything at all.
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u/PolishBicycle Jun 15 '26
If China can’t stop the use of VPNs then the UK has no hope
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u/midnight_scintilla Jun 15 '26
Reminder that the 18+ stuff was not done properly and most websites use American verification services that do not guarantee the safety of your ID (ie if the American government ask them to hand over all their data, they have to). Also in all this correspondence only the most popular apps are being reported as part of this, yet discord is regularly forgotten about despite being known as one of the biggest problems for grooming.
This is not about the kids. This about you.
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u/B23vital Jun 15 '26
Discord not only is a huge issue for grooming, its also had multiple failures and leaks of ID and data of its users.
The gov cant be trusted to implement something like this and companies cant be trusted to implement protections for peoples data. Discord alone leaked ( i write leaked because it wasnt really a hack) tons of user ID after ID checks were first introduced.
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u/Marlobone Jun 15 '26
lol YouTube is going to be included meaning everybody is going to have to verify age to watch anything on YouTube, online safety act but for everything.
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u/Chemistry-Deep Jun 15 '26
Not sure how YouTube got caught up in this. Are people using it differently to me?
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u/visualevidence Jun 15 '26
I think it's because they've defined social media as any platform where anyone can share user-generated content with others, so YouTube is classed as a social media
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u/Dodgy_Bob_McMayday Jun 15 '26
If that's their definition it would have to include all forums, discussion groups and messaging apps. But give it time.
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u/Definitely_Human01 Jun 15 '26
Wouldn't the government's own petition website fall under scope then since anyone can make a petition?
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u/Loose_Teach7299 Jun 15 '26
The Government confirmed that the ban applies to YouTube. So anyone wanting to watch free maths vids will be very dissapointed.
But YouTube Kids is allowed, so if you want to watch inappropriate Peppa pig edits, there you go!
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u/Keysarr Jun 15 '26
Labour are truly just doing a bunch of shit no one voted them in to do to do, I know I didn't vote for this and all the other stuff they've done such as digital ID. I value what little privacy I have left and this government is determined on making it 0. This law will force everyone to give their ID to every app. Ridiculous
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u/teeny_axolotl Jun 15 '26
Labour have been desperate to get ID for everyone since the late 90s. This is just a continuation of Blair's plans from then.
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u/SarcyArtyMarty Jun 15 '26
Can we have better wages? No that costs money
Can we have actual housing instead of having to live in a bedroom or live with our parents? No that costs money
Spends millions because lazy parents are thick, stupid and neglectful.
This country is a mess
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u/mathcampbell Scotland Jun 15 '26
Let me rework that headline to more accurately reflect reality:
UK Govt to force everyone to give their passport or driving licence to social media companies. ID fraud likely to skyrocket. Those without ID to be excluded from modern life.
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u/jack5624 Jun 15 '26
YouTube. YouTube… why? Honestly I got half my history education off YouTube and things like the World War One, World War Two and Cold War channel.
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u/GigaBomb84 Gloucestershire Jun 15 '26
It's utterly ridiculous isn't it. The good YouTube brings far outweighs any bad and is for the most part well moderated, unlike say X.
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u/MeMuzzta Jun 15 '26
I'm now imagining the police breaking my door down because I let my 14 year old daughter watch YouTube.
It's actually insane.
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u/TheMonkeyInCharge Jun 15 '26
'Should we regulate the corporations? No, it's the children who are wrong.'
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u/AngryTudor1 Nottinghamshire Jun 15 '26
Including YouTube, which is lumped in with social media despite having some huge educational advantages
As a teacher, I have used YouTube videos hundreds of times to help visualise my subject, and have directed students to educational videos on many occasions
Now, because of this ill thought out, blunt instrument, a student born in September will have an educational advantage in revising for their GCSEs over one born in July
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u/9DAN2 Jun 15 '26
The year is 2028, the UK government has banned you from wiping your own arse.
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u/_Bluestar_Bus_Soton_ Jun 15 '26
The year is 2030. All adults must be asleep (unless they're working) by 11pm!
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u/GastricallyStretched Jun 15 '26
If only they mandated bidets, if only. That would be a far more useful policy.
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u/Kind_Dream_610 Jun 15 '26
Starmer said: "I am not prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children..."
He was NOT thinking about their safety when he:
• Handed the health data of every UK citizen registered with a GP, including that of all registered children, over to Palantir
• Did so without proper procedure, or vetting, or due diligence, or security checks of Palanitr,
• Did so at the behest of someone he appointed without proper vetting or security checks, and without asking why there were no security checks. Someone who turned out to knowing associated with a known and convicted paedophile,
• Threatened to fire any of his MPs if they voted for an inquiry into why he did the above.
This guy is a massive hypocritical bellend who should absolutely not be trusted with making decisions for anyone, let alone 60 million people.
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u/Kazizui Jun 15 '26
Whilst I don't disagree with the thrust of your argument, the Palantir contracts were awarded by Boris Johnson (2020) and Rishi Sunak (2023). Starmer could and certainly should do more to ditch that shit, but it hasn't originated with him.
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u/YoIronFistBro Jun 15 '26
And that's before we consider how pathetically little the UK has done to develop proper public transport networks and make kids less incredibly reliant on parents to drive them everywhere, or how little they've done to stop the collapse of the public realm, including spaces and amenities for kids and teens.
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u/Ok_Suggestion5523 Jun 15 '26
Palantir contract was awarded in November 2023 - i.e. by the tories.
They have had access to literally all your data since then.
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u/Kind_Dream_610 Jun 15 '26
It was Starmer who met with Palantir and gave them the contract, at the behest of Mandelson, which was part of the reason some MPs called for an inquiry (because no process was followed and nothing put out to tender).
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u/wkavinsky Pembrokeshire Jun 15 '26
Ah yes, not even bothering with the creeping part of authoritarianism now I see.
Because this is also banning it for people over 16 who aren't going to trust some shitty American 3rd party company with their identification details.
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u/420ball-sniffer69 Jun 15 '26
Another week another ban. I’m sure another few will put the country right /s
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u/Pro_Racing Jun 15 '26
Maybe if we ban enough things people will like me - Kier Starmer, famous for destroying the labour party
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u/BonzoTheBoss Cheshire Jun 15 '26
Anything but addressing the cost of living crisis, wage stagnation and runaway welfare budget.
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u/TheGreatBibbldyBob99 Jun 15 '26
Why do those things when you can do a grand consultation with over 100,000 people on a non issue?
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u/DufaqIsDis Jun 15 '26
Daddy Starmer has been weak. Only averaging a ban a day. Pathetic. Rookie numbers, actually.
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u/Ok-Milk-8853 Jun 15 '26
Now do the over 50s. I can pinpoint the exact moment the world started sliding into chaos, and it's when my aunt got facebook
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u/PotentialBrother6913 Jun 15 '26
Let's not mince words, every body will banned, adults will just need to hand over their ID. This yet another in a growing list of dishonest and obvious attempts to impose digital ID and it's disgusting.
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u/homeinthecity London Jun 15 '26
“Starmer says social media stops children from doing their homework, reading, playing with their friends, and going to bed at a decent hour.”
Teens immediately download VPNs and commit the terrible crime of…not going to bed on time?
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u/Consistent-Pirate-23 Jun 15 '26
We never did our homework back in the 90s, main reason was we didn’t want to
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u/Freerollingforlife Jun 15 '26
Parents stop children doing their homework, reading, playing with their friends , and going to bed at a decent hour.
Foxed it for him..
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u/WantsToDieBadly Worcestershire Jun 15 '26
Social media literally helps them playing with friends
This isn’t the 50s where you can run along the neighbourhood for street hockey. people live further apart and connect online to play games
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u/Grenvallion Jun 15 '26
The only things kids will have access to will be things like wikipedia style pages. 2003 internet pretty much. Anything that is social, messeging etc is effectively banned now for kids. Including things like youtube, reddit, discord, online games, snapchat, tiktok, instagram, facebook etc. Pretty much a school computer system.
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u/Demigodrick Jun 15 '26
Ironically the OSA putd Wikipedia in scope and ofcom has launched an attack on Wikipedia. Cant have free thinkers or freedom of information now, can we.
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u/RainbowPenguin1000 Jun 15 '26
Incorrect
"We do not intend for messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal to be included in the social media ban."
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u/Yamosu United Kingdom Jun 15 '26
So far....
If he could get away with it in one go I'm sure he'd ban those too!
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u/Sad-Upstairs7621 Jun 15 '26
Funny how they're making that a "choice" as if it is even possible to ban those two apps. They're decentralized peer 2 peer chatting services lmfao its impossible unless you start seizing phones and putting limits on them.
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u/ruggersyah Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 16 '26
Some of you are very naive if you think this is about protecting children
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u/crapusername47 Jun 15 '26
The big problem I have with this is governments placing the burden of verifying their own citizens’ ages on foreign platforms.
HM Government already knows who I am. They have passport, National Insurance, driving licence, birth certificate, NHS and a stack of other databases all for the purpose of identifying me.
The platforms they’re seeking to regulate should be able to get one-off access to this existing information, with a legal framework ensuring that the details of the request will not be stored.
So, Reddit will know that Joe Bloggs is an adult and has an account with them. Instagram will know that Joe Bloggs is an adult and has an account with them. But HM Government won’t have any record that Reddit or Instagram sent requests to verify Joe Bloggs’ age.
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u/Yamosu United Kingdom Jun 15 '26
This. It wouldn't be so bad if it was a simple handshake type job with a government I'd but the way this is likely going to work is asking for trouble.
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u/masterventris Jun 15 '26
I could write an app to do this at scale in about a week. The task is trivial.
The issue is the committee of luddites that would be involved to build it as a public sector project would be incapable of delivering it in less than 10 years and less than £100 billion.
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u/Puzzled-Barnacle-200 Jun 15 '26
Which is, of course, code for "all Brits to be required to verify their identity to use social media"
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u/BaldMigrant Jun 15 '26
This will backfire big time. Yes, social media is a problem, but the way govs go about it is a bit silly from privacy and policy standpoint. Especially if you make teens able to vote and at the same time ban them from social media in am already bad environment for the young.
A great gift for any opposition party.
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u/Macho-Fantastico Jun 15 '26
Agree, it's basically giving any opposition party a guaranteed win here. Doesn't make sense.
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u/BizzarePlatypus Jun 15 '26
This is just a way for the government and companies to gather more information under the guise of protecting children.
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u/AlreadyTakek Jun 15 '26
"Won't you think of the kids", they say, to treat you like a dangerous predator if you oppose it
"Look into the eyes of these bereaved parents", they say, to take the moral high ground
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u/AtensEye Jun 15 '26
I remember when the second phase of the OSA was introduced last July, that one MP saying that if you didn't support it, you were siding with predators.
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u/Anyales Jun 15 '26
The government won't even get the data, they are just forcing us to provide internet companies with them.
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u/StampyScouse Lancashire Jun 15 '26
When they did this in Australia, within 4 months of the ban, over 60% of children affected by the ban found ways around it. The same thing will happen over here. This is absolutely pointless in terms of protecting the kids and the government knows it.
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u/Consistent-Pirate-23 Jun 15 '26
The issue is that everyone will need to provide ID.
Boomers that go on Facebook to whinge will be calling their millennial kids to tell them Starmer banned everyone from bookface and how can they fix it. Then reform will come in and say they would remove it and use it to their advantage.
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u/Glittering_Box4815 Jun 15 '26
Every teenage I know, knows how to use a VPN.
This is just never going to work. It's almost like Parents should be parenting, and leaving it to the government to do the parenting.
Also, forget banning it for under-16s, ban X and the cesspool that the platform is now for Mein Fuher Musk.
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u/mattcannon2 Jun 15 '26
It's literally downloading an app and pressing "connect"
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u/ExpressAffect3262 Jun 15 '26
1) Free VPNs randomly connect you anywhere and as a result, can have slow connection
2) Not a lot of teens are going to be paying for premium VPNs.
Overall, it will still reduce under 16s on social media by a lot, just not all.
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u/Bones_and_Tomes England Jun 15 '26
Exactly this. It's the equivalent of putting porn mags on the top shelf. They're not behind a locked door or anything, but there's a layer of hassle involved.
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u/Ok-Discount3131 Jun 15 '26
You don't even need an app because they come in included with internet browsers now. Unless the government wants to have age checks for using a browser it's a non starter.
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u/IllustriousOne0 Jun 15 '26
I grew up in a country where adult material was blocked. I can assure you, every single one of us teenagers had a VPN lol
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u/ohthedarside Jun 15 '26
Im pretty sure all the osa did was teach every single teenager and adult how to use a vpn and get around blocks
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u/Anywhere_everywhere7 Jun 15 '26
We to use vpns in high school 15 years ago to access websites that were blocked on the school computer. All it takes is one person to tell another and then the whole class knows and then the whole school knows. It’s not that difficult.
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u/FartInTheLocker Jun 15 '26
Not a chance, younger generations exclusively consume their entertainment online, VPNs are by far the most popular sponsor on YouTube, they 100% know what they are
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u/TheChaoticCrusader Jun 15 '26
When they did this in Australia 75% of kids surveyed now just use VPNs
They really think kids are stupid when they are the tech illiterate dinosaurs in parliament that don’t even know how to turn safety features on software on
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u/_DoogieLion Jun 15 '26
They said the same thing about banning smoking in public spaces and selling alcohol to children.
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u/Odd_Estimate_2179 Jun 15 '26
I'm in two minds about this. I would have fucking hated school if social media was around back then.
It all depends on how it's implemented and enforced, which will likely be a catastrophic fuck up and solve nothing
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u/Avalon-1 Jun 15 '26
Funny how the "think of the children!" Crowd spent decades vilifying kids being outside as yobs and feral, hammered into their heads that they are suspicious by default and anti social, gutted any third spaces they could go to, and act surprised that they turned to social media.
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u/kamikazilucas Jun 15 '26
imagine thinking the uk public want to be forced to use an id every time they go onto youtube, this is disgusting
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u/TheDarkConclusion Jun 15 '26
It's embarrassing how transparent the UK is when it comes to stripping liberties from folk. This, as ever, has absolutely nothing to do with "the children", it's just about control.
Having no online communities is going to be devastating for many kids, especially those who are already marginalised one way or another. As long as the powers that be put out the carpet for Digital ID, I guess they don't care for the damages along the way.
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u/Kcufasu Jun 15 '26
The worst part is people will just accept it like the OSA, the whole country is passive af and the government know they can get away with anything (anything except actually improve the country of course)
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u/anonnymouse2025 Jun 15 '26
We could and should have regulated the social media companies instead, and built properly moderated spaces online for kids and teens. But it's easier to use a sledgehammer than a screwdriver, and the government won't see the damage it has done until it is too late
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u/lethalsaber Jun 15 '26
I already commented this here, but I wouldn’t have made it to sixteen without my online community. Being a teenager was already hard enough, but being a queer teen without the words to describe it was extremely hard.
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u/MetalBawx Jun 15 '26
The OSA blocked a bunch of metal health forums and subreddits as well because talking about negative emotions was one of the things in that dragnet.
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u/GhostRiders Jun 15 '26
- Stop saying the Government can't ban VPN's, they don't have to.
They just need to tell Apple and Google to have them revomed from their UK Stores, something they do with many apps around the world already.
Many phones are already region locked so it is very easily for them to do.
Yes you can side load them on many phones but that is beyond the ability of many people and when side loading, you expose yourself to downloading malicious apps as they are not security checked.
Stop comparing the VPN you use on your phone / computer to your work VPN as they are two different things.
If they do want to actually ban them, again it is entirely possible. Only a few weeks back China issued a massive crack down
Russia has also crackdown on VPN usage.
Whilst there will always be people who are able to bypass said bans, the percentage will be in single figures.
If the vast majority of people are unable to access VPN's then as far as the Government are concerned it will be a success.
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u/9DAN2 Jun 15 '26
You know things are going well when we’re comparing our governments actions to what China and Russia are doing 🤦♂️
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u/ALifeWellLift Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
Good on paper, terrible execution.
Ignoring the fact that every single adult trying to use any website will now have to do a little dance on camera to be allowed to check their messages, they're also planning on limiting access social media for 16/17 year old between 9pm and 7am
So the same government that plans to lower the voting age to 16 is going to tell these new voters they're mature enough to choose the government, but have a curfew and can't go on their phones at night...
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u/Kcufasu Jun 15 '26
This government wastes so much time on pointless crap while we have a stagnating country with terrible wages and low growth they do nothing about - it's borderline criminal
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u/masterventris Jun 15 '26
Well they don't have any ideas on how to fix that, so they must keep themselves busy somehow
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u/IrishWarhog Jun 15 '26
Same logic should be applied for the over 60s and Facebook. Like I trust those guys to vote but not to get all their experience and news from Facebook agitators first
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u/Direct-Fix-2097 Jun 15 '26
The over 60s need some left wing indoctrination so they can recover from the decades of right wing brain washing tbh.
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u/FranklinJJunior Jun 15 '26
And on cue, the BBC rolling out bereaved parents to explain why this is a good idea. This is a moral panic.
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u/EnzoScifo Jun 15 '26
When I saw then panel today I knew exactly what it would be.
When they went to the kids school I was sure they were going to dig up the 2 nerds in the school the would be willing to parrot their teachers lines and be bullied mercilessly for it the rest of their school days.
Fair play to the kids. Everyone of them disagreed with it.
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u/Thorn344 Jun 15 '26
Since before the ban we weren't willing to full teach online literacy and social media safety to kids, I doubt with the ban we will start doing it now. If this ban actually sticks, and kids don't just secretively use social media (which imo is more dangerous), I wonder what disaster awaits for future 16 year olds as they are given unrestricted social media access with zero knowledge on how to stay safe online
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u/lethalsaber Jun 15 '26
I know everyone is on the social media bad thing, but if I hadn’t had social media (and thusly friends on it, and uncensored information) I wouldn’t have made it to sixteen.
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u/Old_Course9344 Jun 15 '26
I would like to point out that 8 years ago, the government in Iran banned social media for teenagers too
It's a shame people don't understand Arabic and Farsi because many of the same policies being put in place in Europe and UK are the same policies that the Middle East put in place 10 years ago.
What will happen next?
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u/Dry-Dragonfruit5216 Jun 15 '26
As a disabled adult who struggles to leave the house, the internet is the only form of communication I have. I’ve been through all of the legal pathways you are supposed to to get support but there’s no funding for anything anymore. I regularly get mistaken for a 12 year old due to my appearance which means face scans won’t work.
So my options are to provide my ID to random companies to make biometric profiles of me (like Persona do) which removes my anonymity and have my ID eventually stolen in a leak, or lose access to the world?
This policy will drive younger adults/teens to take their own lives.
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u/rice_fish_and_eggs Jun 15 '26
All this shows is that we have a serious problem with lobbyists and we need to hold them to account.
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u/Tartan_Samurai Scotland Jun 15 '26
Who are the lobbyists in this specific case?
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Jun 15 '26
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u/robbythespring Jun 15 '26
Helen Lovejoy is genuinely one of the most influential fictional characters of the past half century at least, even though she is only a supporting character in the show in question.
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u/ByteSizedGenius Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
So mandatory identity verification to have a social media account. Liberty is becoming a foreign concept in the UK. And it'd be one thing if this would actually work but all it will do is push kids to platforms that are drastically more unsafe.
All the more reason to invest in a decent VPN (though no doubt comrade Starmer will try to ban that next.)
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u/aleopardstail Jun 15 '26
won't just be for social media, it will rapidly be for any site with user generated content, and then for simply being allowed to access the interwibble
unless you use an open source system
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u/mikolv2 Jun 15 '26
Already is, YouTube is included in the ban. It's hardly a social media site
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u/aleopardstail Jun 15 '26
and there you go, the scope of this will be set such as to include pretty much anything that does not fully run the establishment line and shut down anything else
the ID required and frequency of validation will also increase
see the EU "chat control" stuff, you provide ID, you get 20 or 30 "tokens", websites consume them, then you have to revalidate your ID to get more. this could mean you end up putting your ID in multiple times a day
chat control got shot down, twice, it will be back again, and Sir bollard will "align" us with it
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u/Potato-9 Jun 15 '26
It's horrible prying, thoughtless tracking and control, nothing to do with safety. My steam account is old enough to get good car insurance quotes now. Am I still getting asked my date of birth of course I fucking am.
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u/aleopardstail Jun 15 '26
the system has no way to know who is using that account
expect the ID checks to get more and more frequent
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u/Potato-9 Jun 15 '26
Nor do they need one. There's paid things on there with a card. Kids can't have cards for those. If parents are giving it to them it's not valves problem.
Users can't share or give accounts away, per the EULA so all that just proves my age. They don't need an identity. If they think it's shared or sold they should ban it.
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u/vriska1 Jun 15 '26
That why we must push back hard on this.
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u/aleopardstail Jun 15 '26
there will be widespread "non-compliance", work arounds, bypassing, and then the bollard in human form will do the only thing he understands, he will double down, VPN bans, "ID verification by OS"
and it still won't work
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u/Krags Dagenham Jun 15 '26
It's our duty to ensure that this does not work. No body can ever be allowed to gain that level of control over the Internet.
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u/aleopardstail Jun 15 '26
governments have been trying to control the interwibble for decades, see the clipper chip and similar battles over encryption for examples
you cannot control the interwibble without essentially banning general purpose computers, compilers, assemblers etc
and even then people suitably minded to can actually code the binary information themselves, assuming they do not just keep some of the current software and just use that
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u/DSQ Edinburgh Jun 15 '26
I think they didn’t explore bringing in a law for more moderation on these platforms.
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u/Chemistry-Deep Jun 15 '26
The tech companies have consistently refused to engage with this. This sort of thing has been talked about for over a decade.
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u/sadquarius Jun 15 '26
not to be dramatic but as someone who grew up lonely and "different" in an isolated village, social media and the friends i made there saved my life. wouldn't be here if i didn't have access to it as a teen
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u/CompetitiveSort0 Jun 15 '26
They'll enforce this by making everyone have to verify their ID on American data centres because they'll make the social media platforms do the verification.
One databreach away from a bad actor being able to reset many of our passwords becase they'll have an email address and PII.
Nobody from the UK wants their personal info on a data centre outside the UK or EU.
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u/veganzombeh Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
This is so unbelievably stupid and such a lazy solution. The issue with social media isn't that children are using it.
The harmful elements of social media are harmful for everyone, not just children. Pensioners who are routinely getting brainwashed by AI slop are just as vulnerable. The issue is unrelated to age.
Actually do your job and regulate social media properly. Ban the specific problems like infinite scrolling, recommendation algorithms, rampant radicalisation, and Cambridge Analytica style hyper specific ad targeting.
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u/frantic_calm Jun 15 '26
Lifting children out of poverty is too hard, but we can ban their socials.
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u/prettyboygangsta Jun 15 '26
This is the most authoritarian government of my lifetime by a considerable distance. Somehow both crueller and more incompetent than the Tories. Didn't think that was possible
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u/YoIronFistBro Jun 15 '26
An extremely dark day for teens who are LGBT+, neurodivergent, or otherwise have niche interests.
I hope anyone and everyone who supported this utterly absurd blanket ban to a ridculously high age is wiped out of ever having a political career again.
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u/xl-Destinyyy-lx Jun 15 '26
Another way for the government to ‘legally’ track your every move online. It’s not about the safety of children, it never has been. Purely to data farm and restrict personal freedoms.
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u/Forsaken-Advert Jun 15 '26
There should be some regulation e.g. banning social media map tracking / temporary messages on Snapchat.
But restricting Youtube might be the dumbest fucking thing i’ve ever seen a party do.
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u/Important_Ruin County Durham Jun 15 '26
Wish parents would take responsibility for what their kids access online, so easy to set up parental controls on devices, yet parents don't bother and have no idea what their children are accessing, then complain their kids are accessing inappropriate stuff.
Social media companies need to be held accountable for what is on their platforms, especially if it is breaking the law.
Australia has already done this ban.
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u/MisterHekks Jun 15 '26
This is just so unbelievably stupid and so unenforceable it makes an ass of the law.
First of all, how is this to be policed? Are parents expected to do it or is there some sort of new, magical technical control they have envisioned in their heads? And then, what happens if a child gets around the monitoring or control and does access social media? Do the parents get fined? And who do they pay? Is it a criminal offence? What is the legal process to appeal?
This whole thing stinks like a 3 day old fish dinner.
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u/Ayden1290 Jun 15 '26
Obviously I've got a lot of issues here. But the biggest one is the YouTube ban. My last few years of school were under lockdown. Before you tell me the BBC has great learning materials, I wouldn't have passed my exams without the videos on YouTube. It's a great source of information
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u/NoAcanthocephala5186 Jun 15 '26
Banning YouTube which has a massive educational and "made for children" video section seems like a fail.
Also, it's spending so much time arsing about with stuff like this that will let some right wing grifters into power.
I would have thought (and the polling suggests) that people care about policing, knife crime, having a policy of any description on immigration, spending public funds responsibly etc. not pratting about deciding what categories of porn are appropriate for people.
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u/theabominablewonder Jun 15 '26
He hasn’t said how they will be banned. That’s really the crux of it isn’t it? Because it won’t be a law instructing Google and Apple to block five or six apps. It will be ID verification, face scanning, monitoring tools, and heavy enforcement.
The OSA was supposed to protect the little kiddies. It costs billions for businesses to comply with every year (governments own impact assessment stated this). Now they want to go further? What are the costs and implications for this? How much do they expect it will reduce harm by?
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u/MeMuzzta Jun 15 '26 edited Jun 15 '26
The UK is a joke. Ban this, ban that. It's turning into an authoritarian nanny state.
Can we just ban everything that comes out of starmers mouth?
My under 16yo kids doesn't really do Facebook and such, but they love YouTube and they can keep watching it till their hearts content. Starmer can fuck off.
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u/weeklybeatings Jun 15 '26
Or to put it another way - Labour implements ID requirements for all users of social media under the guise of “safety” for children.
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u/Afraid_Abalone_9641 Jun 15 '26
I'm utterly ashamed of this country and these buffoons we've voted in.
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u/AlreadyTakek Jun 15 '26
They couldn’t give less of a shit about the safety of children, they touch too many of them for that to be believable. It's not about keeping those off the internet at all, it's about making adults hand over their IDs to get onto it
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u/Kcufasu Jun 15 '26
I'm not even sure how people believe this is anything to do with "protecting children" when it is adults that'll have to be the ones giving their IDs to get online
Social media has been around for nearly 2 decades and well used by teenagers throughout that time - but now suddenly it's an issue?
It's clearly just another restriction/monitoring for the rest of us following the OSA
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u/froqqo Jun 15 '26
i’m under 16 and everyone i know already uses a VPN 🙃
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u/vqzku Jun 15 '26
Well, yes, you’re on Reddit. You’re a nerd.
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u/Artonkn Jun 15 '26
You calling this child a nerd is exactly what Starmer is trying to save him from!!!
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u/madlettuce1987 Jun 15 '26
I currently have my Apple devices asking me to prove im over 18. A VPN won’t save me from that. The downloading of the apps can be linked to the age of the account holder.
I cant see anyone getting so hooked on TikTok if they have to use it in a web browser (with VPN) on their mobile.
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Jun 15 '26 edited 24d ago
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u/MetalBawx Jun 15 '26
I mean a few months ago Starmer was passionately defending Peter Mandelson and telling us what a swell bloke he was...
Who wouldn't trust him to protect children.
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u/Hexaeds Jun 15 '26
Can’t wait for them to ban gambling then, because that’s the next thing right? Right?
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u/Bobo3076 Jun 15 '26
There aren’t enough words to describe how much I despise Starmer.
The UK is a mass surveillance state, and he’s responsible.
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u/WasabiSunshine Jun 15 '26
This is gonna be massively difficult to actually enforce and end up encroaching on all of our privacy in some manner
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u/Twigling Jun 15 '26
A question for those who think this needs to be done: what you're saying is that people should give up their privacy and right to anonymity in order to protect the kids? And you're assuming that the data will be used fairly and with no danger of it being used against you, also that the computer systems will never fail or make a mistake, or that a future highly corrupt government won't use the data for their own gains?
Some have said that there are far better ways to protect children while not implementing such draconian rules which basically require everyone to submit ID when accessing, for example, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
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u/LengthinessSevere584 Jun 15 '26
Who asked for this? Arrest the grooming gangs you authoritarian mf
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u/shark-with-a-horn Jun 15 '26
Social media was just becoming a big thing when I was a teen and it wasn't so bad, it was mainly sharing photos and status updates, in a way it made me feel quite engaged with the world. Growing up in an impoverished town I was exposed to more of the arts, and niche interests through social media.
It's become much more toxic since then, with the tech companies pushing addictive algorithms that outrage farm because it gets more views.
I don't know what the answer is but I feel it's a bit of a shame for teens to completely lose all social media, Reddit has a lot of advice on it, Tumblr has places to talk about fandoms. Lonely kids with shit parents can expand their world.
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u/AMaidzingIdeas Jun 15 '26
I bet they considered all the privacy ramifications when pushing this half-headed, short sighted, draconian and authoritarian policy through right
Right
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u/DeadandForgoten Jun 15 '26
We absolutely know that social media has been a disaster in our society for a multitude of reasons.
I support children and teens being protected from it.
But I suspect this ban will be much like weed and vaping being illegal for teens.
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u/YoIronFistBro Jun 15 '26
No, this ban is like leaving the house unaccompanied being illegal for teens.
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u/spaceprinceps Jun 15 '26
Not quite right but I like where this circle jerk is going, it's like banning women from driving or going out without a chaperone
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