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

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.

With nanna8 and Casdon

Another suggestion was making parents of under 16s responsible for what their children do on their phones . . .
That would mean that all parents have to be as technology literate as their children.

I think you’re right nanna8. It’s not going to work for current teenagers, but if it becomes embedded in parent thinking who now have younger children, longer term it will. I think as so many countries are going down the same route, the regulations internationally on the media and games companies will keep tightening, which can only be a good thing for children’s futures.

It works to a limited extent but I suppose if it improves things for a few it is worth it in the long run. It makes parents more aware of the dangers at least.

Think he’s targeting the wrong side of the problem.Of course the problems of what young folk see needs dealing with but it’s up to the billionaires who own it to get it sorted .Most young folk need their phones / laptops for schoolwork .
Our almost 7 year old regularly has online work set .

The children in Australia have found ways round their ban.

Go after the media companies.

You're quite right, it won't work.