Bye bye Starmer

[ZedLeg]

That’s not really a fair comparison tbh, America has way worse gun crime stats than even countries with similar gun rules (Australia and Canada for example).

Banning handguns never stopped people owning handguns.

[Rich B]

Banning handguns never stopped people owning handguns.

[GG.]

Having heard the back and forth I think I still lean more toward's Dave and Jobbo's position on this. Social media itself should be improved (a lot of it is pretty painful to use given the algorithms heavily promoting what you see). Banning things is a binary and usually inappropriate way forward - taken as the easy option.

The broader context around parenting is important as really it is a much broader issue than just social media use. My consistent experience of parenting settings over the last decade, whether that be playgrounds, school or home environments, the current generation of parents (mostly millennials) have absolutely no concept of pushing their kids toward behaving well or placing guardrails around what is acceptable and what isn't. They're massively laissez faire whether that be from letting kids just scream until they're finished screaming, throwing things around, being rough or violent to others - even not saying "careful" or "move over" when they're about to run straight into someone whilst walking down the street.

In that context gen alpha are going to be gen Z turbocharged as a lot of the bad habits you associate with "benefits class" council estate parenting are in effect now mainstream in middle class households. The drivers are not so much indifference but not wanting to be harsh to their kids or perhaps no muscle memory of this being the kids of "liberal" parents themselves. Ultimately its going to be a big negative shift in the ability of these kids to function in society as adults (as we're already seeing with gen Z).

[Rich B]

Social media itself should be improved (a lot of it is pretty painful to use given the algorithms heavily promoting what you see).

Absolutely - how would you do that though?

[GG.]

Social media itself should be improved (a lot of it is pretty painful to use given the algorithms heavily promoting what you see).

Absolutely - how would you do that though?

I think dialling back or controlling algorithm use, scrolling, perhaps mandatory time limits for under 16s. More restrictions on harmful content - stopping chat functions for kids in gaming scenarios where adults can interact with kids. I think there is lots. All nuanced and takes time versus just utilising the ban hammer.

[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.

Just to repeat the point that social media is not the single issue here.

[Rich B]

Social media itself should be improved (a lot of it is pretty painful to use given the algorithms heavily promoting what you see).

Absolutely - how would you do that though?

I think dialling back or controlling algorithm use, scrolling, perhaps mandatory time limits for under 16s. More restrictions on harmful content - stopping chat functions for kids in gaming scenarios where adults can interact with kids. I think there is lots. All nuanced and takes time versus just utilising the ban hammer.

Its a lovely dream, but we had to make blocking threats to make Grok remove the function to make child porn ffs. Even then, their response was “we’ll make it a subscription only function”.

Trying to ask companies to make reasonable socially responsible changes is just pissing in the wind. They’ll only find worse work around to replace them and the gov won’t be able to keep up.

[GG.]

I'm fine with levying the threat of banning individual apps / programs if they do not comply. Sometimes that results in the same thing with them just being switched off in our region (see GDPR) but not attempting to force improvement, letting adults suffer from the same stuff and just banning it for kids without even the suggestion that it will be reversed if and when apps can show improvement is definitely knee jerk and the easy way out in my view.

[dinny_g]

Bottom line is this...

Rather than go into battle with the tech giants, Politicians have passed the buck over to parents to manage the fallout from this while at the same time 'appearing to care about the yoof: while at the same time, allowing the tech and social media companies free rein to continue to do whatever they like

This is poor weak politics and has absolutely nothing at all to do with politicians worrying about the impact pissing off social media companies has on their profiles and their ability to get re-elected - nope nothing at all.

IF anyone wants me, I'll be over here parenting my child

[V8Granite]

Educate the parents and kids.

Also, not everyone can have everything they want. Some kids use it sensibly and for good reasons, others don't. Some kids can deal with sugar, some can't. Life doesn't have to be fair for all it should just be fair to the child for their ultimate success.

Dave!

[Simon]

Insta, Tiktok, snapchat, twitter and even most youtube shorts can get in the bin as far as kids are concerned. For actual long form YouTube content though, it's stupid to include this.

My son is 6 going on 7. He has a Lenovo tablet with kids space set on it, which means we can set up exactly what he is exposed to, what time limits are and so on. I control the whole thing through Google's family link, and he can also access his YouTube account through the smart telly in the lounge, so we know exactly what he watches and what he's allowed to do.

Importantly, it allows him to regulate. Because of his neurodivergence he spends most of his tablet time simply watching bus videos of journeys on the local bus routes, or train videos, or similar. It's enormously important for him and I will do whatever is necessary to circumvent whatever laws come into force next year to allow it to continue. Starmer can fuck off if he thinks he can interfere with my parenting in this way. I know what is best for my son. His cabal of 300 thick MPs can do one.

If they were serious about this they'd simply demand that kids accounts don't have access to any messaging features or comment sections in anyway (stuff my son couldn't care less about), rather than continuing with the typical control freak and micromanaging of peoples lives in this way. Yes, I know YT kids exists, but most of the content on there is aimed at very young kids - he can't get his bus or train fix on YT kids.

It's exactly the same stupid thinking that has resulted in the blanket 20mph in Wales, which is now having to be rolled back a lot.

For those who are old enough to remember the creeping id cards that were coming at the end of the last labour government, the coalition binned it off as soon as they came into power.

[unzippy]

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)?

Separate password protected youtube accts - adult and child.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802167?hl=en

[GG.]

Thank you - this is helpful and something I will set up on the TV. Ideally it would also allow you to turn off "shorts" but doesn't look like that is an option?

[GG.]

It's exactly the same stupid thinking that has resulted in the blanket 20mph in Wales, which is now having to be rolled back a lot.

For those who are old enough to remember the creeping id cards that were coming at the end of the last labour government, the coalition binned it off as soon as they came into power.

And ultimately this is what will promote the movement of people across to more extreme parties as they will be desperate for someone to take a huge axe to a lot of this and wind the clock back 25 years (well 28/29 years really as most of the rot set in with the new Labour government of the late 90s).

[Rich B]

I'm fine with levying the threat of banning individual apps / programs if they do not comply. Sometimes that results in the same thing with them just being switched off in our region (see GDPR) but not attempting to force improvement, letting adults suffer from the same stuff and just banning it for kids without even the suggestion that it will be reversed if and when apps can show improvement is definitely knee jerk and the easy way out in my view.

I do get that, but tech runs a hundred times faster than governments do. They’d simply not be able to keep up if every individual change had to go through any level of consultation.

I think there’s justification for both banning it for kids and improving it for adults.

with Youtube kids, be careful - we were getting adverts for things like this 18 cert films through the youtube kids service when we used to use it. The actual content of the videos was usually fine, but the adverts didn’t seem to follow the same ethos or rules.

[GG.]

I'm fine with levying the threat of banning individual apps / programs if they do not comply. Sometimes that results in the same thing with them just being switched off in our region (see GDPR) but not attempting to force improvement, letting adults suffer from the same stuff and just banning it for kids without even the suggestion that it will be reversed if and when apps can show improvement is definitely knee jerk and the easy way out in my view.

I do get that, but tech runs a hundred times faster than governments do. They’d simply not be able to keep up if every individual change had to go through any level of consultation.

I think there’s justification for both banning it for kids and improving it for adults.

with Youtube kids, be careful - we were getting adverts for things like this 18 cert films through the youtube kids service when we used to use it. The actual content of the videos was usually fine, but the adverts didn’t seem to follow the same ethos or rules.

And things like this should be pretty easy to improve but obviously if it gets banned completely there is no incentive to do so - some future government will repeal this (probably voted in by all the 16 year olds that Starmer is giving the vote) and then we'll be no further on. It's frustrating.

AI could also be utilised to be an effective virtual nanny you would have thought. If parents either can't (not able to have sufficient oversight) or won't then parameters could be overlaid. You could argue that this is worse than banning it and then saying "have at it" at 16 (i.e. if you let kids drink from 13 but gradually increased the amount - as adults would then inevitably get restricted in time if it was effective...

[Rich B]

I'm fine with levying the threat of banning individual apps / programs if they do not comply. Sometimes that results in the same thing with them just being switched off in our region (see GDPR) but not attempting to force improvement, letting adults suffer from the same stuff and just banning it for kids without even the suggestion that it will be reversed if and when apps can show improvement is definitely knee jerk and the easy way out in my view.

I do get that, but tech runs a hundred times faster than governments do. They’d simply not be able to keep up if every individual change had to go through any level of consultation.

I think there’s justification for both banning it for kids and improving it for adults.

with Youtube kids, be careful - we were getting adverts for things like this 18 cert films through the youtube kids service when we used to use it. The actual content of the videos was usually fine, but the adverts didn’t seem to follow the same ethos or rules.

And things like this should be pretty easy to improve but obviously if it gets banned completely there is no incentive to do so -

i think it’ll more likely be the opposite. where’s the incentive to improve things now? If they have a large section of their audience removed, they’ll be the incentive to improve things to try and prove they’re responsible and get exemptions to get that audience back.

[Rich B]

You do enjoy a post submission edit don’t you GG!

[GG.]

I was thinking about that - i.e. if the audience gets taken away they'll need to reform. Ultimately I think that only will happen if it becomes a much more global thing. If you have just the UK and Australia's kids affected I think the likelihood is they'll shrug their shoulders.

[IanF]

Ban it all and then remove companies from the blacklist if they demonstrate enough control and limitations are implemented would be the safest method I’d say.

My daughter is 16 and was talking about this earlier this week; her recent experience was tik tok showing her unedited videos of the bungee rope death, the rock climber falling into the volcano and a mother holding her dead baby that had been caught in a cross fire somewhere in South America - non of which were searched for and the end result is unknown until you’ve watched it. Horrible videos that I’d rather she not see (and she didn’t want to watch them either!) and certainly suggest that leaving it as is isn’t the correct choice. I’m grateful to have a daughter that talks to me and doesn’t just absorb this sort of info and internalise it.

My son was 6 when he and his friends searched for “sexy strip” on his friend’s dad’s work desktop.. we were all in the garden having a drink when his phone alert went off!.. an angry 20 odd stone, 6’6” South African made sure they NEVER did that again! (Or at least got better at hiding it)

Tbh I think we could all do with more controls on social media: I’ve put an hour limit on my own insta app, I’ve deleted all the others and believe unregulated social media will be this generation’s smoking.. we know it’s bad for you but can’t give it up! And my mother seems to have become a Mail reader and all that entails, so maybe blanket controls and not just under 16s is the answer?