Starmer’s plan to ban under 16’s from social media

David49

It should have been done years ago 90% of parents is pretty conclusive, there should also be a ban on smartphones for children.
There should also be a general restriction on porn and other unpleasant material online.

How would that help? Most “children” access online services via their games consoles. Gone are the days when games came on hard copy. Games are all downloaded now and unless good parental controls are implemented messaging services are readily available. Children also have tablets and laptops and especially at Secondary School from Year 7, but in some Primary Schools, homework is set online.

Outright “bans” rarely work. If they did we’d have no drugs at all and no underage drinking.

Accountability from all adults and education is the key.

Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility.

I do applaud KS and KB, however, so much more is required.

I'd like to see it working, but I doubt it will

If it saves one kid from depression and suicide it is worth it in my book. Easy to scoff and of course a lot will get round it but the fact that parents are encouraged to support it has won me round personally. I thought it was a rubbish idea originally but results have changed my mind.

Cossy

Just heard on BBC News that in Australia 7 out of 10 under 16 were still accessing the banned sites!

Well that’s 3/10 not so it’s a start

Good luck with that Sir Keir.

If only you pursued NHS waiting times with such rabid determination.

Also just heard that what the sites themselves wanted the hardware, ie phones, tablets, games consoles, etc etc to be hardwired and age related criteria actually on the devices so that banned apps couldn’t even be downloaded onto these devices (seems like a great idea) but apparent all of this sites are tasked with adding in age verification to their software so on registration age would be verified.

Just heard on BBC News that in Australia 7 out of 10 under 16 were still accessing the banned sites!

There’s another point about all of this, older siblings. I know from bitter experience, with our last three only a very few years apart, I had three under 5, it’s very hard to stop child number one at 16, not showing child number two at 14 what they are looking at online.

Why are 17 year olds not protected? Some 14 year olds are more savvy and clued up than some 16 year olds.

Badly thought out! This awful Pandora’s box is now open, parents and tech companies need to be far far more accountable and parents need to be far more savvy and clued up.

I was so lucky, I worked in IT around the time the Internet was made available to us all, I had a ton of training. I was also the safeguarding school governor at our younger children’s schools so attended and rolled out a ton of Internet safety training.

Our youngest child is only 24 so it was all pretty relevant.

Doodledog

I understand that WhatsApp is not included in the ban. I may be wrong, but I'd have thought that any bullying etc would be likely to be done via that, rather than in more public places such as FB. I don't know many people of that sort of age though, so I'm not well-placed to know.

Probably keeping children off TikTok and the like is probably a good thing, though. The trouble is, areas such as SM evolve all the time, so rules set now will be out of date very soon.

I think you’re right, Doodledog
Messaging apps including WhatsApp are among the more potentially dangerous aspects of SM.
The teen killers of Brianna Ghey plotted via messages.
The TB that made my grandchild’s life a misery used messaging.
I don’t have statistics, but observations on public transport and in cafés shows far more children messaging than playing games.
How are they going to stop/ monitor that?

nanna8

They have had quite a bit of tv coverage about this here and some kids are actually benefitting from it and playing more sport and getting involved in more outdoor activities. That works here because ,mostly, we have sunshine and good weather. Whether it would work in colder places I am not so sure.worth a go,though, isn’t it ?

That’s parents responsibility to decided how that time will be spent.

Nothing to say they won’t simply be online streaming movies etc.

Both KS and KB fully support this.

As a mother and grandmother I like the idea, but feel it’s naive and unrealistic.

When fb first emerged it was aimed at 18+ students.
When registering initially your date of birth had to be entered, but not in any way confirmed or verified.

How will you keep teens under 16 off these sites? Almost all teens have smartphones, laptops or tablets (many will have all three)

What I would much have preferred is:-

More accountability to those owning the websites/streaming services to monitor and stop anything within their sites which might be consider a danger to anyone.

Responsibility to parents to ensure their under 16’s are not spending 7+ hours a day online, by putting in controls on the wifi and mobile data.

Restrictions to the amount of time spent on any one site and warnings each hour about how long has been spent online.

How on earth is this going to be policed? Who will be penalised if a 15 year old is found on these sites? The child? The parents? The site owner?

I’m afraid I think this very well intentioned legislation is doomed to failure.

Maremia

On the BBC just now a report saying that 9 out of 10 parents, in the vote, supported a ban.

And parents will be grateful that the government is trying so change the whole cultural context within which social media operates. That sort of change doesn’t occur rapidly of course but it’s a start.

I would say target the tech companies, blocking porn sites & other dangerous material. Anyway I thought KS wanted to bring down the voting age to sixteen? If so how do they learn about anything if there is a total ban on SM.
My eight year Gc is a whizz on the computer, has me tied up in knots, as I am not one bit interested in computers.. but obviously isn’t on any of those SM sites.

On the BBC just now a report saying that 9 out of 10 parents, in the vote, supported a ban.

It should have been done years ago 90% of parents is pretty conclusive, there should also be a ban on smartphones for children.
There should also be a general restriction on porn and other unpleasant material online.

*algorithms

I doubt if those that implemented it will admit to it not working Nanna8
I d love to see the official figures that show children are playing more sport etc, or maybe it’s all wishful thinking

I do agree something needs doing but I think it needs to be much tighter about how they join these sites etc and much more patently control rather than take the phones off young people.
Two of my grandchildren used to travel 30 miles to school everyday so from the age of 11 they had phones so their mum knew where they were if the bus broke down or didn’t turn up
But they were told they were only getting them on the condition that the phone would be looked at by the parent to see what they were doing with it every now and then, of course at 11 they would have agreed to anything to get a phone like their pals, so they adhered to the rules and they had an eye kept on what they were doing, or viewing She had no problems with them at all except to sit down and explain to my good looking grandson that some of the suggestions the girls were making could get him in serious trouble!
He understood and thankfully never got into trouble

I think is better than doing nothing. As was said on the news this morning young people might drink alcohol underage but that doesn’t mean we should lift the ban on underage drinking. If something is dangerous it needs to be banned.
And yes of course tech companies need to be reined in and made accountable for allowing dangerous algorithm to target children. There should be prosecutions.

When it comes to information technology young people are the natives, their parents are the immigrants and their grandparents are the tourists.
The youngsters can and will run rings around us with their superior IT knowledge.
I would prefer to see the tech companies taking far greater measures to clamp down misuse of social media.
Of course parents, teachers, youth leaders, etc., can help by educating, especially regarding how the young persons use of the internet can put them in danger and also how their own misuse can come back to bite them in later life.

They have had quite a bit of tv coverage about this here and some kids are actually benefitting from it and playing more sport and getting involved in more outdoor activities. That works here because ,mostly, we have sunshine and good weather. Whether it would work in colder places I am not so sure.worth a go,though, isn’t it ?

As they say no use in shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted it’s the tech companies who can help not a ban and 16 is too old anyway I had a grandson out at work between 16/17

Nanna8 Iwas listening to an Australian spokesperson today saying it definitly isn’t working in Autralia and he was virtually laughing at us trying to follow suit

I agree with the Posters who are saying go for the tech companies.

I understand that WhatsApp is not included in the ban. I may be wrong, but I'd have thought that any bullying etc would be likely to be done via that, rather than in more public places such as FB. I don't know many people of that sort of age though, so I'm not well-placed to know.

Probably keeping children off TikTok and the like is probably a good thing, though. The trouble is, areas such as SM evolve all the time, so rules set now will be out of date very soon.

It's a start at least, and if it saves any teenagers lives then is well worth it.
I'd certainly like to see the tech companies controlled more though.