The UK's new under-16 social media ban will cause more harm than it prevents
eff.org
eff.org
From an outside perspective, the tech industry/community has repeatedly demonstrated that it's actually very pro-surveillance and child exploitation. From that same outside perspective, another argument of 'hey, we have to combat all attempts at protecting children to avoid surveillance' just sounds like self-serving lies.
You can argue that the tech world is not a monolith, but it looks like one from a wider societal perspective, and often the conflicting calls are coming from the same exact sources. Every AI company, for example, bleats about the potential harms of AI while chasing after them headfirst.
If you want to argue against this kind of legislation, you need to repair a lot of lost trust first.
Not trusting tech companies, or companies in general, is simply the correct attitude, so that's not happening.
I don't feel your typical person feels the tech industry is somehow "pro child exploitation" though. I'm not even sure how one could be in that camp, in practical terms.
Meanwhile kids will still find ways to do what they wish online and it will be hidden... adults exposed to these same bad actors.
This is the result of people no longer having any trust in people who claim to care for freedom while harming others; you can't keep drawing from a poisoned well.
Social media companies bad ... laws imposed by government on individuals who aren't the people doing bad things.
That's absurd.
"We're not the bad actors!" doesn't cut it when half the people saying it absolutely are.
People just don't understand the problems implementing AVS.
I'd be much much happier submitting details or a face scan to a .gov.uk service than all these rando verification services.
But how are your rights limited?
This is such a weird angle. Like saying shops shouldn't age check for alcohol because the parents would know.
They are also friends with other children who have their own parents, devices and network access. Your child doesn't live in a bubble you have control over.
These are all the same fantasy arguments that completely ignore the pervasiveness of the internet and the tenacity of determined children. 15 years of waiting to see if social networks can fix this themselves has only shown us how much they want to exploit us all. They earned this.
Besides this legislation won't solve the problem, it will simply postpone it, while at the same time it will require everyone to do identity verification to access anything. But it's disappointing to see these kind of comments here, as you are clearly individual with limited technical abilities.
Come next election, it will be surprised Pikachu face from many.
Damn dude really makes you think
https://willbrownsberger.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Gile...
The reason all of these improvised ID check systems require you to do things like submit a video of you moving your face around (which has its own problems) is because they want to get closer to proving that the ID you submit is actually the ID of the person holding the phone, not just some ID (or zero knowledge proof) you copied from the internet.
For liquor for example I don't think the govt actually specifies that you shall check ID they specify that you shall not sell to minors.
Yeah, by outsourcing it to some shady company that sells all your private info to the lowest bidder. See Discord for example.
I think we have been stuck in this way of life so long we can't imagine an alternative.
What you’re saying is functionally equivalent to “just deal with it,” since ultimately people will choose to have their privacy violated over the lifelong Sisyphean task of trying to avoid all of that. That doesn’t mean people don’t care about privacy, it’s just the current equilibrium in our broken system.
> I think we have been stuck in this way of life so long we can't imagine an alternative.
I agree.
Is "social media" the internet
Does "social media", i.e., "Big Tech", preserve privacy or eviscerate it. "Internet privacy" is been in direct conflict with their "business model". They engage in sweeping data collection and mass surveillance of internet users to support invasive "personalised" ad services
It seems like most people engaging in "free speech" on "social media" are not anonymous, not really interested in "privacy"
In many cases, they "share" their every thought
40 ways to share information over the internet without age verification
This is old and could be updated with more
The problem with us is we get stuck in local optima and we just can't get out. We're like ants in a death spiral. It takes some enormous external shock to get us out, like a world war. Even a financial crisis or global pandemic isn't enough any more, unfortunately. Individuals just can't accept less and no leaders appear to be able or willing to explain to the concepts of global optimisation or long term plans etc. So we get stuck with shit on top of more shit.
You know, various historians have studied this. No society has ever avoided this collapse scenario. It's like the Great Filter. But in 2026 because of the internet we only have a handful of global-scale societies instead of a hundred thousand regional societies like we used to. The first one to collapse might just catch the whole world in its debris cloud.
Why are we pushing our kids onto the internet? There is nothing there for them. Any politicians pushing for kids internet access are probably doing it for nefarious reasons in my opinion. The internet is not really all that safe for adults either, why are we pushing kids onto it?
I think the internet, however, is a much greater threat to growing minds.
I'm not against kids having some sort of child friendly network access. The trouble is that there is no tech that is child friendly any more, its all vibe coded crap that keeps no one safe at all anymore with hidden traps inside the cesspool of crazies posting all sorts of wierd crap conspiracy shit.
Heck a super beneficial appearing thing like wikipedia is literally an encyclopedia yet the GOP for instance can't stand it if someone talks about any sexuality at all or some other bogyman subject of the hour.
Just ban kids at the internet's points of entry. Phones, Modems. Age gate amateur radio too, no kids interested in amateur radio anymore anyways, no packet switched communications at all until 18 or whatever.
Your comment would be fine without the first and last sentences.
He is clearly exaggerating for effect so much that it doesn't make sense any more, and IMO that is what leads to unproductive debate. It should be called out as such.
The last sentence is a genuine question.
If you feel that someone else is posting incorrect information, it's sufficient to post correct information. Getting aggressive about it is unnecessary and damages the commons.
See meaning 4.3 here:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/call_out
Like someone close to Trump could call him out by saying to him that Meloni didn't beg for a photo with him.
I do the former with ... some regularity (e.g., mis-statements of Weber's definition of government). Where trite/tired comments are frequent, push-back or corrections are also going to be somewhat repetitive.
In this thread, dropping "What a load of hogwash" from IshKebab's original reply would have left a perfectly cromulent point. That phrase itself does go against HN's civility guidelines. The comment it replies to is ... tired.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
Why is letting your kids sext with adult strangers any different? Is it because the only "pimping" you are doing is giving in to your brat nagging for an iphone?
The thing is, the vast vast majority of kids are not doing those things and are savy enough not to. It's the same as the alchohol and drugs for teens. Yes there are some that go to far and even get hooked on hard stuff, but most don't.
Don't get me wrong, I think social media is bad for both kids and adults alike, but predation is not its biggest problem. I'd say the biggest problem is the attention black hole it creates along with a misaligned sense of self. But that's a harder story to sell then 'super scary bad thing is happening so we need to do super extreme thing to prevent it'.
"Recent economic research links the rise of smartphones to the persistent decline in birth rates. A National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) study estimates that early smartphone adoption accounts for 33% to 52% of the drop in the U.S. general fertility rate, particularly among teenagers and young adults under 30"
-- this quote is from AI and could be a complete fabrication
Slow but steady reddification of HN audience (judging by the comments) is its biggest existential threat imo. And the worst part is that, unlike with the actual reddit, this isn't due to the platform owners/admins at all (as I can only think of good things to say about @dang and the HN itself).
Bans would work for >90% of kids and that's good enough.
Really they should just torch the lot.
Realistically, the kids will find their way around the ban.
Go and watch 3blue1brown and then tell me it's addictive cancer.
If you have self control you can avoid the social media element of it.
YouTube demonetisation tends to act as a reasonable steward on the platform, but it does need to be strengthened.
I.e. make YouTube responsible as the publisher for any video with over 100k views. This would be totally doable.
This article addresses the technological flaws in age verification, then says “but even if there were, broad restrictions on social media will inevitably limit access to lawful speech, and valuable online communities, and arts and culture.”
If the EFF care about freedom above all else (a reasonable position) muddying the waters with half-baked age verification isn’t perfect arguments is just sloppy.
Why does the freedom matter above all else? That’s what voters need to be convinced of.
Because without freedom, you cannot really have anything else. You are a slave. Is that really what you want to be? Or how we want children to be raised?
I'd prefer that we had some standardised governmental endpoint that can authorise against a site for us, rather than use multiple individual methodologies to prove
The writing was on the wall for years - it's not the 90s anymore and some compromise on anonymity and verification is coming. Frankly for good reason - I think the social utility of Big Social is massively negative, and even more so for kids.
That was the shot of orgs like EFF to help shape the debate in a good direction. Zero knowledge proofs, anonymity preserving age checks, good govt regulation on this etc.
Instead they all dug their heels in, refused to give an inch or even engage in the debate. If you wanted anything other that a Toresque utopia then you clearly want Big Brother to keep tabs on everything, and you're probably a moron who thinks you have "nothing to hide".
So they vacated the space while Mumsnet users came to the only logical conclusion: let's ban social media for kids, with whatever method comes to their mind. Scanning their ID, face scans, fingerprints connected to a government DB ran by the cheapest contractor - who knows how this will materialise. And I kind of can't blame them. The adults of internet privacy vacated the room because they said everyone else in the room is too stupid. So they left and left the stupid people in charge.
Evidence of harm has been building up over the last decade, so there's been ample opportunity for them to develop effective systems to reduce or mitigate the problems. Instead, they've chosen to do the opposite.
And, if anything, that process has only accelerated over the past 2-3 years - firing moderation teams, amping up the algorithmic feeds, refusing to engage with regulators.
Did they really think their behaviour would have no consequences?
The only possible law is making bigco social media less addictive, and better controls for parents
But maybe this is UK just exercising some soft power, since they have no tech to speak of
Is there a UK version of the EFF that fights in the courts against this lunacy or does it not quite work the same in the UK as it does in the US.
The technical incoherence doesn’t matter. What matters is being able to say “you can’t use Snapchat” and then they say “my friend xxx uses it” you can say “xxx’s parent are delinquent”
This isn’t about blocking as much as setting societal expectations.
The government looks likely to introduce the ban as regulation through secondary legislation (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9824zvpz9po).
That is open to judicial review.
If primary legislation was instead passed, that's a lot harder to challenge - Parliament makes the law, so whatever Parliament said applies.
Politics is very different in the UK than in the US, especially when the governing party has such a large majority.
The banning of under-16s from social media has widespread support across the parties in Parliament.
When will politicians understand how and why the internet was build?
I don’t think people have a problem with “social media” per-say, it’s a problem with algorithmic feeds controlled by a few giant companies with very little if any competition, showing countless optimized ads.
I’m not sure that “there are rules on who can contact children online” is “extreme” for anyone outside of hyper libertarian circles.
The EFF needs to start engaging with actual real world, because it’s intransigence on the issues being caused by unfettered internet usage mean it is unable to prevent bad solutions being proposed.
Call your ISP and set restricted DNS' and ban any instalation of software on children's devices. Problem solved.
EFF are way off base here - this isn't "free as in free speech" but "free as in giant corporations are free to fuck people up the arse".
Terrible article.
Cmon, if you’re trying to make the case for how essential social media is for children under the age of 16, please find some better examples. As if there are no other sources of educational content online than YouTube and anyone who has left Facebook knows the last two points are simply not true. This is so weak from the EFF.
but snark aside, society needs to have a big conversation (meaning political) about what is good and what is bad about what should really be understood as the 'connectivity revolution' of the last 10-20 years.
How in the world did kids ever survive before social media? Miracle of god keeping them sane every second of their miserable deprived lives. Seriously, this is such a bad argument for something that is a return to a previous known good state versus being a new state. No proof provided that social media makes any of these better versus either pre social media approaches or modern alternatives.
Parents are much better at knowing their own kid's age than corporations are. Teens keep fooling the age verification (pointing the camera at a video game character, using fake ID, even drawing beards on their face with a pen). But they aren't going to fool their own mother, and they don't need to trust ID verification startup with photographs of everbody's teenage kids to do it.
That's irrelevant because social media regulation is a collective action problem. No individual parent can restrict their kids access to social media without ostracizing it, it only makes sense if all parents together get their kids off these platforms.
Yes, and the wishes of all parents together != the wishes of the UK government which has its own agenda at play in which to weaponize this public outrage for their own benefit(mass surveillance and mass censorship).
The UK government doesn't actually want what's best for all the children of all the parents, otherwise it wouldn't have allowed and even enabled the rape gangs and sweep the issue under the rug in a massive coverup.
This legislation has widespread support among British parents across the political spectrum[1]
"As YouGov has shown previously, such a policy would be widely popular with the general public. In our latest survey, looking more specifically at the views of parents, we find that 77% of those with children under the age of 18 would support a ban, compared to only 14% who are opposed.[...] Likewise, 76% of parents think the government needs to kick up their activity on this issue, although a much lower rate of 43% think they need to be doing “much more”."
I don't even have any idea what the last paragraph, other than being some generic twitter rant has to do with the topic of the thread
[1]https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/54969-eight-in-ten-parents...
Because parents like most voters, are incredibly stupid, and just want to delegate accountability of their kids to the state, not that they actually understand the repercussions of what they're supporting. Same with brexit. Voters want a scapegoat on why their kids are stupid(er), and the government is happy to offer a monkey paw.
You can't actually bring up the first one because you disagree with me and then the second one when you realize you also disagree with the British people. Either you like democracy or you don't, you don't get to decide that based on what route you want to take in an internet argument.
And British voters have proven that several times over that they're not good at making decisions which is why their country has been in decline. Again, see their Brexit choice as proof.
But sure, you go and personally attack me with no arguments as if that means anything.
The government is, frankly, just better at deciding what's good for most children than their parents when it comes to matters of health. That's a controversial statement, but truthfully most parents are just not educated enough or strict enough to decide where the boundaries should be on their children's health.
This conveniently sidesteps the identity/privacy arguments, makes it much easier to enforce, and would present an even greater net benefit. There is no benefit to algorithmic social media at all, and everyone would be better off without it.
It's always the tech illiterates cheering on the surveillance.
It's a toxic trap which will do absolutely nothing good for and to its users.
Keep the kids away from it, doesn't take an Einstein reincarnate to realize that.
According to the UK government, YouTube is a social media site.
Haven't found a better place to waste your time?
Or maybe you need a new law enacted to help you?
There is nothing stopping people reposting stuff on platforms without social media elements and with proper curation and publisher responsibilities.
Most big YouTubers would love this to happen I’m sure.
Big, popular channels do push their viewers to alternative platforms like Patreon because of Youtube's censorship guidelines and arbitrary demonetization, but a lot of valuable content is on smaller channels where the owners may not have the wherewithal to transfer all of their content, much less their audience.
Putting short form content on it was a mistake.
It’s only not trash if you use it correctly.
Watch some videos by some racists, you get fed videos making you racist.
It has all the negatives of social media.
Ideal the UK would just make platforms responsible as publishers.
This is the dividing line which should apply for under 18s.
So don't watch some videos by some racists, and curate your feed properly. I don't see why the government needs to get involved here.
>This is the dividing line which should apply for under 18s.
The problem is the dividing line won't stay there. A lot of people want social media regulated or banned outright for adults as well. The incentives to restrict freedom of speech and control narratives are all-consuming. Definitions will be intentionally vague so that they can apply to any platform that governments want to censor.
We’re raising a generation of completely emotionally detached robots. There’s something deeply wrong and unsettling, and it’s happening in plain daylight.
I see adults like you describe ...
These platforms are the digital equivalent of heroin if heroin always came with either nazi or bolshevik propaganda.
They are entirely focused on the axe they rightfully have to grind the whole age verification debacle they are not seeing the bigger picture.
The major social media companies are undermining the foundations of our societies for ad revenue and giggles.
Keeping teens out is a huge step in the right direction.