Rishi Sunak considers curbing social media use for under-16s | Hacker News Reader

Rishi Sunak considers curbing social media use for under-16s

theguardian.com

36 pointshdivider22 comments

This seems like a scheme for ensuring that no anonymous / pseudo-anonymous interactions can occur.

i.e. how would an adult establish that they are over 18, and hence are not to be restricted. The only way would seem to be to provide some form of ID which can be linked back to something indicating one is over 18.

So either something like driving license, passport, credit card details, etc; but inherently naming someone.

We can get those at 15 years + 9 months; but generally not allowed to start driving until 17.

internet license? After internet Training program and then a test?

UK really wants to arrest people for saying anything remotely controversial online. What the hell is going on over there.

Desperate lame-duck government trying to distract voters from 13 years of abject failure.

> This seems like a scheme for ensuring that no anonymous / pseudo-anonymous interactions can occur.

In fairness, are anonymous interactions really some kind of fundamental right? If so, how did we make do without it until about 20 years ago for most people? There is no prior analogy really -- phone networks, postal mail, distributing books, meeting in person -- until just recently all information exchange had to be done in a way where you could see and touch the person bringing it to you in some way.

It's even possible we might have fucked up when we got excited about how cool anonymity would be as a thing to add to society.

Yea... I don't know what the right solution is, but it feels like people are getting their brains significantly influenced, or rotted by the endless dopamine hits that social media bring them.

I have a small kid and most of my tech friends who are parents share the opinion that tech/computers can be extremely dangerous if not actively moderated for children.

The 2 people I know who do not let their kids use smartphones/tablets under any circumstances work in adtech and social media.

Outlaw the smartphone! The smartphone is the problem. If you want to be a weirdo who spends all their time online you'll need to sit your ass down at a desktop like in the good old days. With a bit of luck that will unappealing for enough people for society to regress at least 20 years. It is also easy to enforce. They cannot be made in the UK so you "only" need to enforce the import ban.

I know your being sarcastic, but I genuinely wonder if the net benefits actually outweighs the problems.

I am not. Seriously! Outlaw that fucking device which is only good for corporate and government surveillance.

Actually, a variation on that may be practical without it having the overbearing big brother aspect.

Simply ban then for children. So one has to be over 18 to possess and/or use one. Anyone providing a smart phone to a minor would be treated in the same way as one providing alcohol to a minor.

How one then deal with use in the home may be an issue, but no worse than the situation with kids taking alcohol at home. Here one is allowed to consume alcohol at home before one is an adult, it is the parents duty to be responsible.

Given everything else happening, the satisfaction with UK gov at the moment and party issues... I find it really hard to see it as anything apart from a quick attempt at popularity points with the right groups.

It almost seems like social media should be an adults-only thing. At this point I simply don't trust the current corporate powers to be looking out for the human side of things. And it strikes me that regulating social media to be only after you're 18 might be like regulating smoking - if you haven't started by the time you're an adult, it's unlikely you ever will.

I was using IRC at a library computer when I was 13. Now I am at Hacker News. Too late to fix now.

I don't think IRC is comparable in it's effects to the profit-driven (engagement-incentivizing) "Social Media" companies. These are dramatically changing the fabric of society (something Adults can decide for themselves to involve themselves in), but children are a different story.

Honestly, I see how it hooks adults too in a way much worse than smoking or drinking.

We just haven’t caught up to its addictive abilities.

I too don’t know what the solution is, but we’ve tried no regulation and it isn’t working. Time to try some regulation.

However, half of people on farcebook are over 60. They must have started in their 40s!

> “From our point of view, we’re looking at ways to empower parents rather than crack down on anything in particular,” they said. “We’ve identified that there is a gap in research so we’ll be looking at what more research into it needs to be done, but nothing is yet signed off by ministers.”

Translation: From our perspective, there's nothing in it for us (government). We're looking into ways to surveil our citizen, erode their privacy and security by thinking of the children. In no way are we actually going to do something useful for once.

I expect both Apple and Google to heavily lobby against any kind of restrictions.

In other news… Rishi Sunak considers stopping the ocean with a bucket of sand.

If UK can pull this off, I would forgive them all their trespasses. This would be one of the greatest wins for humanity ever and would save our species.

It sounds good on paper. I mean social media does suck and kids getting addicted to that so early is awful, but the only way to implement is going to be to essentially require a driver's license or some other ID to use the Internet I assume and that is pretty scary.

I would risk that to save the kids. Every research about social media on kids gets more and more horrifying.

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