After the House of Lords backed a ban on under-16s using social media, it is now almost inevitable that Britain's teenagers will be joining their Australians counterparts in seeing a 'blocked' message when they try to access their accounts.
An amendment to the government's Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill is currently making its way through parliament and a consultation has been launched on how it worked, and is working in Australia, which they are calling 'highly effective' to make sure no under-16s can become users.
The Prime Minister was initially opposed to such an outright ban but has faced pressure from not only his own backbenchers but parents, celebrities, charities and teachers which has softened his view.
It has been one month since Australia enforced the social media rules for children by banning such platforms for those under the age of 16, and during that time, social media companies have removed almost five million Australian accounts held by minors with Meta/Facebook, Snapchat and TikTok losing the most accounts and the resulting revenue streams and with Britain and other nations now seriously looking at the same policy, the Social Media companies are not happy.
But it seems almost certain a ban will be coming in some shape or form and a Government spokesman said: 'We will take action to give children a healthier relationship with mobile phones and social media'.
I completely agree that it should be banned for under 16's, i have seen the harm it does to young,. impressionable minds and I have heard the argument that it should be the parents responsibility and not the Governments but if it is backed by Law, then that makes it much easier for the parents to enforce so get on with it Keir, the sooner the better.
Thursday, 22 January 2026
Under 16 Social Media Ban Coming To UK Soon
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18 comments:
life is made better by limiting government
Allow the Social Media Companies to do what they want then because that is going well.
using government (laws enforced by armed police) to correct poor individual decisions and poor individual behavior is dangerous.
when the government "fixes" a problem, they typically deny (a freedom taken away) actions indiscriminately - all people under 18, or 21, all women, etc.
then, they pour salt in the wound and tax the people that don't make bad decisions and don't have bad behavior to pay for the imposition on freedom... government is a bad solution...
All irrelevant to the issue of banning social media for under 16s in the UK. We tried not regulating them and it was a disaster so regulate away Government because to not do anything and hope the social media companies will sort the problem out is madness because they won’t.
how will it be enforced? do you have to show id to use social media? teens get fake ids, porn, sex, tobacco, alcohol, drugs, ripped music and movies... but the uk is going to stop unauthorized social media... call me doubtful
is this a response to parents complaining? if so, it seems to me it is like kids being obese and having diabetes and blaming bakeries, candy stores, soda makers, and fast food restaurants.
the government can't fix this. they can create more regulations, laws, and expenses to enforce it. and they will do all these things.
My understanding is it will be like the Australian model where the social media firms will be responsible to make sure under 16s do not access it the same way that they did with porn sites in the UK so the onus will be on them else they face increasing penalties. It worked in Australia so they could do it here.
It was parents, teachers and charities that pushed hardest for it.
good luck.
my observation is that teens are sneaky little twits. their 16, 17, and 18 year old peers will help them get around everything.
plus, they could get additional help. about 2006, US based librarians have posted instructions, methods and tools for getting around "parental" controls on web content because it is the view of librarians that nothing should be censored from anybody - kind of stupid. i should have asked them it content about making guns, bombs, poison, etc. is okay to share too.
while attending the "IT world congress conference" back in 2004 or 2005, i saw 4 canadian teens on a stage being interviewed about their social media behavior. they shared that they had multiple accounts: 1.) to show the parents - see how good i am; 2.) for friends; 3.) for close friends - got edgy; 4.) anon - where they were racist, sexist, and culture-less... their words. as one spoke the others would laugh, nod, grin, squirm so it came across as authentic to me.
i envy your faith in government when it is aligned with your views of what it should do...
Again, it is down to the social media companies to prevent, not the Government.
which is interesting right? the government solution is to threaten innovators with fines and other penalties, not because of the actions of the innovators, but because of the users of the innovation...
Or…threaten the companies that are showing and making money by showing obscene material and causing mental health issues to minors. They have been given plenty of chances to do it themselves and they never so let that continue or force them to stop are the choices. It really isn’t that difficult a decision regardless of your twists and turns to try and paint it as a bad thing. Or would you be happy to let kids see it?
do social media sites "show" obscene material? i thought it was the people (the parents, teachers, and teens) using the sites that show the content.
do the social media companies create "obscene" material? no they don't... it is organized crime that creates 95% of "obscene" content. the other 5% come from individuals that don't have an "obscene" filter.
in the US, favoring censorship of any type is a right or far right tendency. i don't recall any hollywood star, university professor, or democrat politician supporting any form of censorship...
you are getting close to censoring the entire www (like in china or iran)... social media sites don't create "obscene" materials. they just provide a platform to communicate.
and i'm not twisting or turning. i'm pointing out the obvious that is seemingly being ignored. in almost all situations key information is ignored by advocates for each position.
the teachers don't like it but do nothing, school systems don't like it and do nothing, parents allegedly don't like it and do nothing. here comes the government and they go after the companies that enable people to be people... not twisting, just observing.
putting this on the companies that do not create "obscene" content doesn't get rid of the "obscene" content and doesn't keep it from being accessed the old fashioned ways of typing in a url, going to an ip address, sharing via email, text, em, etc.
am i happy to let "kids" see it? i'm not. i assume you mean under 16.
i do find it interesting when advocates use terms like "kid" in some situations, "teen" in others, and "adult" in others (i've often seen the left in the US refer to 18 and 19 years olds as "teens" and "kids" to downplay their culpability - ha ha).. reach for that passive language to support the case... that is twisting. i'm being direct.
regardless, we locked down all such access until our daughters were 18. of course, their friends with indifferent parents exposed our daughters to "everything" via their uncontrolled devices. much of the music our daughters heard at school advocated violence, antisocial behavior, sexual assault, and other nastiness. thank you rap genre.
not that they weren't prepared. we weren't naive. we knew we couldn't count on other parents, teachers, the schools, companies, or the government. we talked to and educated our children about the things most parents neglected including relationships, dating, sex, birth control, police, guns, finances, alcohol, drugs, smoking, etc.
if government law/regulation is the answer, it is because the governed are lazy. and it is an inefficient and expensive solution. no twisting here. just not ignoring reality, human behavior, and history.
i hope it works in the uk.
More twisting, it really shouldn’t be that hard a decision and not sure why you think it is. Ideological I assume. You didn’t want your daughters to see it but are against doing something to stop others kids seeing it. Very strange.
i provided a list of reasons with explanations. calling me ideological instead of addressing the items i noted is status quo.
i'm not against the uk doing it. i just don't think it will work, and it is just another hand off of control from the people to the government.
my wife and i didn't expect the government to protect our children. in fact, the government was undermining us. libraries in the US are government entities, and their employees provided instructions to get around the software blocks we were using to control what our kids saw. you see, they knew better than us what was good for our kids... i suspect the same happened in the uk.
i hope it works for the UK. i just don't think it will work.
every law takes away a freedom or creates a burden for someone.
in this case, the loss of freedom is for people under 16 (which i approve of) and potentially people 16+ (it is very possible that to avoid fines and other penalties imposed by the government's monopoly on violent action that companies will prefer false positives over false negatives) will lose their ability to engage with others online.
the burden is on companies that must enforce this sketchy law, so more overhead expense to maintain systems and processes intended to enforce the unenforceable, reports, internal audits, and government audits. all waste.
meanwhile, some government department (perhaps several) will expand. they will hire more employees that get a salary, benefits, and a pension (as if the uk can afford more of those). they will not provide any tangible value for the uk. they will enlist and pay for professors, and scientists, and other professionals to conduct studies and produce reports that substantiate that the tangible costs are outweighed by intangible psychological health benefits in uk youth... and the left will slurp it up like bangers and mash!!
So in your usual long winded and way too wordy way, you are saying don’t try to do anything?
no, i'm saying your are lazy and stupid to count on the government to fix everything
And i am saying you are ideologically blinded and wholly ignorant and if you think business will fix this themselves.
never said business would fix it any more than breweries and wineries fix alcoholism, casinos fix gambling addictions. i blame lazy ass parents mostly.
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