About time. It only takes one speech to step down Sir Keir.
this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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This will be the excuse to make VPNs illegal. Very convenient.
Its basically impossible to make VPNs illegal. They're trivial to set up and many of the worlds businesses depend on them for their IT infrastructure.
Don’t worry, businesses will be exempt, and enforcement will only be for people the government doesn’t like. Watch out, trans folks.
I'm concerned that a ban is one of the likely outcomes of the consultation. I don't think it's the right way to tackle this. It's not only children who are victims in this, although they are the most tragic ones. Social media platforms affect us all. Regulation of functionality and design patterns is in my opinion a better option, although the optics of such doesn't give the picture of a decisive government in quite the same way as a ban.
Requiring ID to use social media puts the onus on the users. The onus should be on the platforms.
Requiring ID makes people happier with ID docs overall, so that they can still swipe through TikTok or whatever they do these days.
Asking change and responsibility of the companies might lower shareholder value.
Requiring ID also vaporizes more of the rights to privacy online for the entire rest of the population, and if you are against that, then it must be because you don't care about child safety.
Has anyone tried talking to the children - y’ know, asking them if they’re ok and stuff - instead of just kneejerk legislating even more of their childhood away?
I feel sort of ambivalent about the whole thing myself. Yes, it is yet again surveillance state crap being pushed onto all of us under the THINK OF THE KIDS umbrella and keeping them off social media is rather difficult if the desire to go there is strong enough. So the kids might begin delve into the less corporate depths of the web such as here in their search for ways around the restrictions, which wouldnt be bad either i would say.
On the other hand, social media is a cancer on society and the mental wellbeing of (not just) young people. If this somehow led to the kids collectively returning to the real world, meeting and interacting like it used to be common, that would be fantastic. Could even inoculate them against the right wing propaganda machines at work online.
This isn't going to bring back third spaces. This isn't going to make "loitering" the sort of thing police come over to bother you over. This isn't going to help children stuck in suburbs or ones stuck with parents who think everybody is out to rape them because of the yellow press.
They could make social media less of a hellscape - ban advertisements, hold them accountable for misinformation, set minimum standards for user control over feed algorithms, that sort of thing.
They could make existing in public as a child more viable - restrict cars, expand public transportation, add child friendly bike lanes and pedestrianstreets, subsidize third spaces for unaccompanied children, make the outdoors more pleasant to exist in by adding so many more (homeless-friendly) benches and hangout spots that the homeless can hang out in some spaces and kids in the others, etc.
But no, they just ban the place sympathy for Palestine came from by expanding the surveillance state.
Disclaimer: i am arguing from a European perspective. Living in the suburbs around here means 20 minutes into town by bike or public transport.
So the kids might begin delve into the less corporate depths of the web such as here
So they'll be exposed to ill-thought out extreme reactionary leftist positions instead.
But only when the material conditions are right of course.
Politicians love the idea of a social media ban for kids because they don't have to do much, but it looks like they're doing a lot.
I’m not British, but from the outside it seems the meeting could give an unpopular Starmer a saviour story he desperately needs, and an ID-based system would let big tech have its way with citizens: the algorithms tearing our societies apart remain unchallenged and profitable.
Seeking out those most harmed by any one thing and then forbidding or censoring that thing doesn't seem like great reasoning.
Their suffering is real but no basis for modern governance.
Jimmy was tragically killed and his parents are crying on TV and saying it could have been avoided if Jimmy had been legally required to remain indoors. Playing outside is child abuse.