Feels heavy handed, but the brain-rot seems to be quite real, so I don't see a better option.
There are options that don't involve forcing everybody to prove their age and provide ID verification to access social media
Indeed. Assuming this is the real goal. That would require of people to trust the government. I in general trust no government.
Also, including the mid-teens (15-16) into the regulation may have a generational negative effect. This is the age you start to get interested in the world and how it works. Social Media is the primary medium teens use to get this information, having eclipsed traditional media (magazines, tv shows, radio shows etc.) Banning Social Media for these ages leaves a gap in newer generations maturing to adults.
But maybe that's by design? I.e. make new generations indifferent to the world around them, and also prevent them from building resistance to (home) propaganda spread through Social Media.
Oh yeah, and what about BlueSky, Mastodon and similar? Can they afford age verification? I'm pretty much sure they will be considered "a social media platforms" as well.
Fewer voter from young people, though. The proposed curfew is even more stupid: https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/how-uk-social-media-ban-wo...
Which would mean that a sixteen year old would be able to stand in a polling station and vote at 9pm but not then go on Tiktok once they'd left.
(yes, the same government which doesn't trust children with social media has also lowered the voting age. No, this makes no sense. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/representation-of... )
One common route that comes to my mind is this: block [something-dangerous] for children, then implement age verification for [something-dangerous], then use it as a tool of censorship. It's way easier to identify and track individuals based on their passport/ID/driving license than based on their email, IP address or even phone number. And then you're getting jailed for posts somewhere on BlueSky or X or on any other social platform because they were hate speech/disinformation/discrediting the armed forces (the last one is the real thing in Russia, and I just see the UK as the country which goes the same path) - while actually you was just criticizing the actions of people in power.
And you can also legally ban and block platforms, services and even software which doesn't satisfy the requirements of age verification.
That's how I see it; that is, I repeat, my assumptions and thoughts. I have never, never in my lifetime (which is rather short though) seen such proposals turn out to be good.
Conversely, social media is widely established as posing severe risks to children and teens. Heavy use is strongly linked to mental health issues, addiction, and disrupted sleep. It's not that different from banning the sale of hard drugs.
Caution is well advised ... but hard drug equivalent causal effect? Not so much.
Scientists pour cold water on claims phones are rewiring kids' brains
Appearing before the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee this week, three researchers spent much of the session explaining that concern and evidence are not quite the same thing.
Asked what evidence exists on the impact of digital devices on infants and young children, Professor Denis Mareschal, director of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, replied: "There is very little, if any, causal research in the early years. Almost everything is correlational."
MPs kept coming back to the question – and the experts kept coming back to the same answer.
When questioned about social media's impact on adolescents, Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of the University of Cambridge was equally cautious. "What evidence do we have of the impact of digital devices or social media on the adolescent brain?" she asked. "Almost nothing. There are a few small studies, but they haven't been replicated, and they're purely correlational."
So you're not anywhere near Russia. Yet.
Note that you have introduced the term "fascist dictatorship" into the conversation, not I. So that may be the issue with how you understand my words. Moreover, when I was comparing Russia to UK, I was only comparing them in terms of censorship and amounts of attempts to enforce a state control over the Internet.
And I fail to see how political and especially cultural climate matters in this discussion. Wasn't it the British prime minister, David Cameron, who back in 2015 pledged to ban all online messaging services which provide end-to-end encryption? Isn't that the UK in which Investigatory Powers Act (2016 one) exists? Isn't that in the UK where voices are heard to ban or regulate VPNs by introducing the mandatory age verification? What about the whole recent UK "Digital ID", or so-called "BritCard" effort? Clearly, the political climate may be different, the cultures may be distinct from each other, but still two countries may wander in roughly the same direction - at least as it seems to me in my personal view - when we're talking about censorship.
My argument was never about the "climate". It was rather about the "current weather", so to speak. And the forecast, based on all these data points, looks remarkably similar - but, I must reinforce, only to me - that's my own, personal opinion.
With all that said, to be completely honest - I don’t really care what happens to the UK. It’s not my country at all; I have no connection to it, and what happens there affects me personally, my family, and my friends about 0%. Whether the UK establishes yet another (in the world) dictatorship with an iron curtain, or simply introduces Internet censorship and surveillance for the good of the people, or manages to preserve true democratic values and not trample on human rights - to be perfectly honest, I couldn’t care less. At least - until the UK’s domestic policies start harming other countries through their expression in foreign affairs. For me, the main thing is that nothing like that happens in my country or on my doorstep; the rest isn’t that important, no matter how cynical that may sound...
Another 'better option' would be to prosecute tech companies that intentionally create addictive, harmful content.
Banning social media use for anyone unwilling to hand over their secure information to private third-parties seems like one of the 'worst options' to me.
Oh yeah, punishing children for mistakes they need to make to learn not to make them and moving responsibility from parents to the government sounds like a great idea.
(There's a bottom 5% of kids whose parents are basically completely negligent or actively abusive, and they end up causing basically all of the problems)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/belfast-riot...
Targeting kids is a distraction from making the difficult choice of confronting powerful adults.
I'm certainly not defending the man, but that comment to me is definitely not plainly seen as "advocating riots"... I'd call that a very disingenuous stretch of the truth.
If we're going to criticize people, I think we need to do it for the right reasons.
For what outcome though, hmm?
The exact opposite logic gets applied against supporters of Palestine such as Sally Rooney, who was threatened with a total ban on her (unrelated) work until the High Court ruled in her favor.
He's not thick, he's (at best) reckless.
Reckless definitely.
"Thick" is presently unclear: a lot of money and an existing competent team can hide a lot of damage upstairs; and it's not implausible that he has done that damage, even just because he is known to have sleeping difficulties[0], and sleeping difficulties are known to correlate with IQ impairment, and that's aside any questions about ketamine (between the war on drugs and AI SEO, I have no idea what that stuff really does).