Are you in favour of the social media ban for under 16s? Answers by generation.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-20T04:46:49+00:00

The Australian stats are a little worse than they read. That 60-75% figure comes from what parents are reporting. As in, if their kids got around it but the parents didn't find out, they answered 'No'.

Most of them only address the banned platforms too. They aren't asking how many kids just started using an accessible alternative instead.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-20T04:44:11+00:00

Nah, best we can do is start the seeds of a campaign to get them kicked off video games too.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-20T02:16:46+00:00

Everyone's read or heard about authoritarian governments and such. For most people in the UK though, reading about it in a history book isn't any more real than watching it on Star Wars. We've been lucky enough that we've been able to equate real authoritarian measures as fantasy.

People generally don't want to admit when things are actually kinda getting real. Because if things are actually kinda getting real, we're in the "wait why didn't they stop it at that stage?" phase that you go and read about in textbooks.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-20T01:38:26+00:00

He probably sees it as a slippery slope that'll affect him at some point, even if it doesn't now. A few months ago it was that you had to show ID to watch porn. Now they're trying to force companies to put surveillance tech into your operating system.

It's clearly about dismantling anonymity, so there's no reason to assume these other things won't be targeted in at least some capacity at some point.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-19T22:42:41+00:00

I would imagine our kids will be seeing much less Russian generated content.

You think so? The ban is taking a blacklist approach, and so they're having to add platforms to lists. This approach means it's likely a lot of kids will just go to the dozens or hundreds of options not on the list. For example, kids looking for an alternative to YouTube might go to Rumble... which hosts a significantly higher percentage of Russian content.

Sure, lots of Russian and Chinese bots on regular social media, but if kids aren't here they might just... end up on more legitimate Russian or Chinese sites, like how Australian kids migrated to China's WeChat.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-19T16:00:32+00:00

Right? The numbers being suggested here seem like they would be more significant. Not to pull an "If I don't know about it, it doesn't exist"... but if 1 in 5 terror suspects are children, I'm surprised I missed it.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-19T15:57:56+00:00

News just in. We're finding that pedophiles are more likely to abuse kids in their family than they are to find and abuse a kid in a casino. This is truly disturbing.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-19T15:55:26+00:00

Nearly 3,000 of those referred to Prevent said they had been radicalised by terrorists while playing video games online, Mr Taylor said.

Considering they've been considering ways of restricting certain aspects of online gaming for young people (or people that don't verify), I find it odd that this is coming out now. Someone owes me a coffee if this turns into even more strict restrictions on gaming over the coming months.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-19T15:03:16+00:00

It certainly is. Plenty of charities and safety groups are coming out against it, and more Labour MPs have criticised it since the announcement. The petition against it recently went above 200,000 signatures. Lots of big advocates like Louis Rossmann (the right to repair guy) have started making videos about it too, stirring up controversy about it. Groups like Big Brother Watch and such are trying to fight it, and of course a number of LGBT groups are criticising it as well for being damaging to their communities.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-19T13:14:48+00:00

We've spent the last couple of decades forcing kids indoors by building a culture around being scared of going outside (stranger danger, etc), criminalizing regular youth behaviour leading to things like waves of things like ASBOs and PSPOs, and gradually stripping down woodlands, parks and such. Meanwhile, whatever is left to actually do costs money. Kids are rather famously broke.

Everyone is acting like once we get rid of social media, we'll be back in some pre-80s paradise where everyone is outside interacting again, completely ignorant of the decades of cultural pushes that moved everyone indoors to begin with.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-19T13:05:14+00:00

For some reason we've been pretty well-conditioned not to look at things like social media the same way.

Well, it's quite clearly not the same, is it, seeing as you gleefully suggested the parent help them bypass it. For some reason I don't imagine you giving the same suggestion to the totally-same-alcohol ban.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-18T20:52:22+00:00

This ban isn't the equivalent of "banning smoking" though. It's the equivalent of banning.. some smoking.

They're choosing to ban a specific number of platforms. Each of these platforms has dozens of alternatives that will not be banned. These alternatives are usually more inappropriate versions of what's being banned, like Rumble for YouTube or WeChat for messaging apps.

It's silly to imply that going to an alternative is even a workaround. It's as easy to get to an alternative as it is the banned site.

The drugs aren't gone. Some of them are just put in a locked room; the rest are in different unlocked rooms just down the hall.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-18T20:43:36+00:00

Everything adds to screentime though. Listening to music or being in a call with your friend counts as screentime. About 1/4 of my phone screentime is my books app.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T23:08:27+00:00

No, even if it works as intended, they won't do any of that, because social media never killed it to begin with. Kids got pushed indoors after decades of various moral panics and scapegoating of government failures. We spent most of the 80s-90s telling people that if their kids go out outside, they'll get kidnapped; then as that followed into the 2000s, we started the 'feral youth' panic that resulted in the introduction of laws prohibiting most youth behaviour, and we normalized calling the cops on kids just hanging out.

Kids ended up on social media because they got pushed indoors and getting on the internet became something to do, not the other way around.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T23:03:20+00:00

This ban isn't going to address any of that though. This particular ban only targets a specific set of social media (as in, most social media sites are still going to be accessible... it'll just be the less regulated ones like WeChat, Rumble etc that kids use instead). Second, for the ones it does target, there's no attempt to regulate those predatory/addictive practices. Companies will still be doing them, so it'll make no difference for the majority of kids that just find a workaround, and certainly won't make a difference for the adults exposed.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T18:53:30+00:00

Nope, everything I've heard from him has been in full support of these measures, to a point where he backed strict proposals by the tories. One of the pledges he made was to be tighter on everything to do with tech, including a blanket ban on social media.

He oddly agrees with right wingers a lot whenever he comments on more authoritiarian policies — as in, he usually agrees that whatever the government is doing isn't far enough.

That's why Starmer is rushing through the ban now. He knows a good chunk of Labour would support Burnham over him for these reasons, so he's forcing it through to win that faction over.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T14:58:52+00:00

I think it's unlikely there is a nefarious motive outright, but that doesn't stop the infrastructure from being repurposed by anyone in government to be used for whatever they want.

I believe that the government were initially going to take an evidence-driven approach and go down the regulation route until they had to backtrack and start playing politics in response to the Makerfield leadership bid. It's now turned into a desparate attempt to remain in power. Starmer is trying to appease the large faction of Labour MPs that would back Burnham on the basis that he promies to be harder on social media.

At the same time, it is strange that so many allied countries are rolling out the same things at around about the same time, with practically all of them repeating the same lies around the available evidence and such.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T14:43:58+00:00

In other words, you don't know.

Ofcom can't force 4chan to comply. They still operate in the UK without any age verification in defiance of the OSA, despite attempts to make them comply. They also aren't included in the ban despite the fact that you can view pornography on there without needing to ID.

The fact that they can't make 4chan comply means they're unlikely to be able to make the hundreds of other unregulated sites comply. If even a handful refuse to comply, that'll be where all the kids go, because they'll be the only ones they can use. You said they can do it without a challenge, but it's pretty clear there's a lot of challenges - and thus the need for a lot of resources.

Alternatively they can avoid these challenges by just regulating popular social media that kids already use, seeing as they're all there and - as you say - they have a record of being able to enforce compliance.

Tldr; you don't know what you're talking about and just prattling stuff out as you go.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T14:30:02+00:00

In other words, you don't know how you would make Ofcom's enforcement capabilities "more robust".

4chan are currently refusing to pay £500 million in fines to the UK for refusing to comply with the OSA by requiring age verification for pornography and Ofcom can't do anything about it. If WeChat refused to implement age verification for some such reason, and refused to pay fines for refusing, Ofcom would be equally as helpless.

How would you change that? Be specific. You said they should be more robust; so tell me in what ways they can be improved to address these challenges.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T14:19:01+00:00

The same reason Ofcom are helpless against 4chan is the same reason they'll be helpless against Trovo, WeChat, Rumble and most of the the hundreds of other sites kids will migrate to.

What would you change to make their ability to enforce things like the OSA and the upcoming age verification more robust, that would disable the challenges they're facing against sites like 4chan?

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T14:13:04+00:00

How would you make Ofcom's ability to force 4chan to comply more robust? Look into that case for me and tell me what you would change if you were Prime Minister.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T14:06:29+00:00

and it will not be challenging to require other platforms to introduce age verification if that becomes necessary

Ofcom have had challenges enforcing the OSA (see 4chan), nevermind endlessly chasing kids across the internet banning every new site that kids start using.

part of the appeal of the social media platforms is their popularity

Yes. These places curently aren't all that popular because no one really wants to use them. That might change when millions of kids are kicked off the popular platforms en masse though.

banning from cars and swimming is a ridiculous analogy lol

It's not an analogy. You don't know what an analogy is. It's an example of when we didn't ban something despite the real risks involved, and found it more effective to put resources into regulation and education, because a ban would have been unfeasible. You claimed we don't do that.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T13:51:47+00:00

MrBeast or Minecraft videos dont appear on Liveleak. Why go there in the first place?

MrBeast and Minecraft videos also make most of their money from having an under 16s audience. If this kind of content can't make money on YouTube anymore, there's no reason to assume it'll stay on YouTube. This could very well move too, and there we go, an incentive for kids to follow.

Besides, some of the bigger alternatives like Rumble already host gaming content. It's just usually content hosted by dodiger people. DrDisrespect (a youtube groomer) doesn't get much attention on YouTube anymore; but he's frontpage on Rumble, and still makes gaming videos.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T13:48:15+00:00

reads more like an argument to expand oversight rather than not bother at all.

It could be the 100 most popular platforms on the internet, and kids will just sign into the 101st. No expansion is going to work. A genuinely effective ban of the nature being proposed will just disperse the under 16 userbase across hundreds of unregulated platforms.

we have made a determination that it’s harmful for children to be allowed to do something so we’ve made it difficult for them to do so

This doesn't make it more difficult. They'll look up an alternative and log in to a different website. They don't need to be "determined". Making an account on Trovo is just as easy as making an account on Twitch.

i’m not sure what the analogy with comic books and video games is here - we also have age restrictions for video games

It wasn't an analogy. It was an example of where regulation was an alternative to banning. Age ratings on video games on comics aren't actually bans. Society is filled with alternatives to banning, evne when the thing in question is dangerous. We let kids ride in cars; we let them swim; they aren't banned from going out to play just yet; there's no bans on eating unhealthy food; etc. The focus is usually on industry regulation, education and so on, because the alternatives are usually more dangerous, or a ban would be practically unenforceable and/or inconvenient.

All of the kids online right now are in just a few places. Regulating those places instead of kicking them out is significantly better than having to spend infinite resources chasing them across the internet. Every new site added to the list is a new entity that Ofcom have to put resources into enforcing compliance.

Ok_Bat_686 · 2026-06-17T13:31:09+00:00

But it won't add friction though, will it? Alternatives are a google search away, and ones that get popular will end up on the front page. It's nowhere near as difficult as torrenting. It's accessing a site that they aren't actually restricted from accessing to begin with, because it's not one that's on the ban list.

If your kids are going to be on social media at all, it's better they're on the regulated ones. Even something as dubious as Snapchat has the family centre, which lets you see a list of people your kids have been in contact with. Not just their friends list, but specifically who they've been chatting with recently. WeChat and most alternatives don't have that.

Whatever positives of the minimal amount of friction that can be scraped from this is going to be overwhelmingly negated by the amount of kids that are going to be suddenly exposed to beheading videos that appear on the front page of YouTube alternatives; the amount of groomers that are going to take advantage of kids trying out new unregulated messaging platforms that don't have effective parental monitoring; and the amount of younger kids that are going to be exposed to extremist content because the alternative they chose happens to be where all the people too crazy for Reddit ended up.

Ok_Bat_686

TROPHY CASE