Bye bye Starmer

[Broccers]

Lefty fuckers actually waking up.

[ZedLeg]

Is it ok to say reform supporters are racist yet?

[John]

All of them?

[Zonda_]

All of them?

I’m sure they are not all, but I’ve yet to meet one that wasn’t.

[Beany]

Lay with dogs, get fleas.

[ZedLeg]

All of them?

If the party they support is spouting the same rhetoric as racist rioters there’s going to be an assumption tbh.

[Matty]

Probably as good as anywhere for this - Parents....thoughts on the new social media ban?

A Teacher posted on Reddit and gave an interesting take on it, especially for those parents who want to block their own kids, but worry they'll then be singled out/excluded:

[Mito Man]

Not a parent but thinking back to my own childhood. We were using VPNs as 13 year olds to get past the school filter to be able to download music off Limewire and to play those online flash games.
I think banning YouTube is pretty mental, and then you take into account you can vote, shag, and join the army to shoot other people at 16 it’s all a bit weird.

Maybe it’ll work for the next generation who are toddlers now such that no one in their age group has experienced the internet.

[Jobbo]

I don’t think it’s going to be effective - VPN to get round it perhaps? Or it’ll go underground and be less easy for teachers and parents to police.

Emails to multiple people would be caught by the legislation I saw a snippet of; I don’t know what the final wording will be but if it’s tight it’ll catch things it shouldn’t. So unworkable too.

Just ban them having phones.

ETA because Mito’s post appeared; presumably the Daily Mail comments section is also banned.

[Mito Man]

Whatsapp and Signal will be allowed
Wonder what will happen with online video games...

[Rich B]

As a parent of an 8 year old i’m very happy with the decision. I’ve been dreading the day my boy wants to get on snapchat/instagram/X because i know i’m not going to want to be the bad guy who says no when half of the rest of the kids parents have already said yes. It feels like i’d have my own parenting choices removed from me (and trust me, there’s plenty of guilt as a parent already about the choices you have to make).

Of course there will be kids who find work arounds, but as a parent - it’s going to be a hell of a lot easier to enforce it when saying yes means i actively have to go out of my way to buy/set up software to break the law.

[Jobbo]

Whatsapp and Signal will be allowed
Wonder what will happen with online video games...

FFS. WhatsApp groups are going to be everywhere. All it takes is kids to move to a platform which isn’t banned to get round it. They’re resourceful and don’t mind change.

[GG.]

Yes and ultimately it may take away some of the phone element but kids will go back to what we used to do pre smartphones which is use the family computer / laptop (well obviously not laptop back then). Youtube is also logged in on our Smart TV so how is it possible that this can be applied anything like consistently.

It is also completely laughable that you're too young to be able to cope with using social media but then overnight on your 16th birthday a fully capable adult that can go out and vote.

I would be tempted to say that it would make sense for under 13 or 14s, but at that age your parents should be exercise parental oversight a lot more and most switched on parents would not be giving smartphones to an under 13 anyway so blanket bans like this should be unnecessary.

[Rich B]

Yes and ultimately it may take away some of the phone element but kids will go back to what we used to do pre smartphones which is use the family computer / laptop (well obviously not laptop back then). Youtube is also logged in on our Smart TV so how is it possible that this can be applied anything like consistently.

It is also completely laughable that you're too young to be able to cope with using social media but then overnight on your 16th birthday a fully capable adult that can go out and vote.

Do you let your kids on youtube now? we used to, but it was clear the addiction was kicking in with minecraft videos so we stopped 100%.

[GG.]

He does use it on the TV whilst we are around but generally we're not fans as it does lead to them watching mindrot - however, see my edit just after you posted - we are around whilst he is doing it and generally results in us telling him to turn it off and watch something on disney plus. My point was really just how enforceable it can possibly be without age protecting each app on a TV and even then the parents will have to not let kids login to their account (how do you stop them without face ID on a TV)?

[Rich B]

He does use it on the TV whilst we are around but generally we're not fans as it does lead to them watching mindrot - however, see my edit just after you posted - we are around whilst he is doing it and generally results in us telling him to turn it off and watch something on disney plus. My point was really just how enforceable it can possibly be without age protecting each app on a TV and even then the parents will have to not let kids login to their account (how do you stop them without face ID on a TV)?

Im not particularly bothered about enforcing it for other people’s kids - that’s their parents job. It will make it a shitload easier for me to enforce it with my own child without constantly being the bad guy.

Same as alcohol and cigarettes - just because some kids find ways to get them early, doesn’t mean we should just make it legal for kids.

I’m addicted to bloody social media and have to make real efforts to put it Down half the time. i’d rather my kid with his much more suggestible brain not have to make that decision, because the upsides of social media are far less than the downsides.

[Beany]

I can't help thinking that just banning algorithmic feeds would be more useful, given it's the rage bait engagement that's a major part of the problem, and you could just ban their use wholesale in the UK, without affecting just plain 'chronological' feeds, like wot social media used to mostly be - and it'd benefit everyone, not just the yoof of today.

It'd make bot farming a useless effort too, as rage bait posts getting updooted by bots don't end up getting rammed in peoples faces, who then subsequently get directed down into echo chambers, mostly ones containing racial, sexual and religious hatred. I'm significantly less stressed since I stopped looking at, for example, the FB main feed, and only look at my own chronological one, because I'm not getting LBC and other lefty orgs baiting for content with MAGA shit thrown in my face all the time.

Banning FaceyB to under 16s seems like it's rather missing the fucking point, honestly.

[Rich B]

It would be good to try and cull this whole “doing it for the gram” “likes” culture too. I’m sure the majority of us old men on here couldn’t give a shit about sharing staged photos of every minute of our lives on line and getting concerned over how many likes it gets, but i’m sure there are plenty of kids who do - with some awful outcomes.

Anything they can do to normalise not staring at a phone 8 hours a day for approval is a good step imo.

[ZedLeg]

As I said the other day, prohibition doesn’t work

[Swervin_Mervin]

It would be good to try and cull this whole “doing it for the gram” “likes” culture too. I’m sure the majority of us old men on here couldn’t give a shit about sharing staged photos of every minute of our lives on line and getting concerned over how many likes it gets, but i’m sure there are plenty of kids who do - with some awful outcomes.

Anything they can do to normalise not staring at a phone 8 hours a day for approval is a good step imo.

Totally agree with you on this Rich. We've managed to keep the boy away from it all and he's 10 now. He doesn't have a phone with any social media apps or even a SIM, albeit that will change next year.

I think what gets lost a lot in this debate is the addictiveness of social media and phone use - there's so much more focus on the nature of the content itself. Both are equally important, especially given that addictiveness can shape their developing brains.