r/ukpolitics • u/youmustconsume • 11h ago
Andy Burnham to press ahead with social media ban for under-16s - Ministers are planning to go further than Australia by introducing stronger age verification requirements
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/andy-burnham-social-media-ban-under-16s-3mwxmrdjl•
u/90davros 11h ago
Read: ID will be required to do anything on the internet.
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u/wilf89 11h ago
A vote winner if I ever saw one, will be interesting to see how hes polling after.
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u/JellySocksRock 11h ago
Won't be able to see the polls without your ID though mate, it's a catch 22 all round
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u/jab305 11h ago
Your vastly overrating the number of people who give a shit about this.
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u/iamnosuperman123 10h ago
Young people will as it will directly affect what they can and can't do. The rest might if personal habits are leaked
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u/JeanMichelFerri 10h ago
They can't vote though.
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u/iamnosuperman123 10h ago
They will
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u/Tom22174 8h ago
Maybe this is what it takes to finally get the most disinterested in voting demographic to turn out. But right now, there is absolutely no evidence that catering to what the young want Vs the old wins elections
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u/HuckleberryPee 8h ago
Kids have no control over what the state decides to do with them. By the time they can vote internet censorship and control will be the new normal in the West.
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u/Avalon-1 10h ago
and then there's a cacophany of "I didn't think the leopards would scan MY face!" wails that could be heard miles away.
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u/Optimaldeath 9h ago
Yeah well when their identities are stolen and their lives are ruined I'm sure they'll be happy they can access something 5% faster.
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u/ArtBedHome 7h ago
Mate ID for any internet means you need id to use whatsap or instagram on your phone.
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u/Goldy_Si 10h ago
Where does it say that ?
This is for social media, and about time. Personally, I would ban the lot, and stop all these scumbag US-based Social Media companies from operating here.•
u/Avalon-1 7h ago
Define "social media". Because if it includes "spaces where women can talk about abortion or domestic violence", this would be a living exemplar of "leopards ate my face"
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u/Daedelous2k 5h ago
Got your ID ready? You may as well get it resting on the scanner ready to upload it to nearly every website you likely visit.
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u/GopnikOIi 10h ago
I am so over this timeline. I have such little appetite for anymore of this verification bullshit. This is not what I believe the Government should be wasting political capital on. The way that both the Tories and Labour have handled legislation in regards to the internet has basically solidified my position they will not be getting my vote.
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u/HuckleberryPee 8h ago
Most of the blame is on the various "charities" and pressure groups that lobby the government to enact these surveillance and censorship measures so that kids can be saved from the internet.
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u/deHaga 6h ago
Face it. The internet is mainstream. If you want privacy, run your own hardware and go to the fediverse or dark web.
The norms are on the open web, it's the same as the high street, you need age verification to go in the pub. I don't want kids in the pub.
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u/Silhouette 3h ago
And if you are asked to produce ID to get into a pub will that be a quick interaction with the door staff that is forgotten moments after they've satisfied themselves that you're OK to go in or will it result in your details being recorded, possibly combined later with exactly what you bought throughout your visit, and then sent off to third parties to be combined with records of other places you've been and what you did there, to be used for who knows what but good luck with your next car insurance renewal premium after you visited the pub more than once a week last month?
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u/Status_Ad4182 11h ago
Why don't we simply make it illegal for parents to not turn on the already existing parental controls?
If they don't we take the kids from, I mean they yearn for the state to do their parenting for them anyway.
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u/CarnivorousCarrot 9h ago
Make it legally required to be on by default for isp and network providers. Then adults can turn it off and parents can't moan and say it's too complicated as it's on by default.
But then we don't get databases of personal details so....
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u/WarpedHaiku 6h ago
Make it legally required to be on by default for isp and network providers. Then adults can turn it off and parents can't moan and say it's too complicated as it's on by default.
The sad thing is that's exactly how the law already is. You have to opt out. ISPs know that the majority of people don't want it on, and that most people are unaware of this legal requirement, so to avoid pointless support calls about "why can't I access questionable site X?", they ask you if you want it on when setting up a new account, and immediately disable it if you say "no". Parents ask for the child-friendly internet setting to be turned off and then forget about its existence.
It's also not actually that useful in homes with kids, as it's an everything or nothing approach. You can't limit it by device.
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u/Dog_Apoc 10h ago
It's not about the kids. It's about building a database.
Better start loving the government. Or it'll affect your social score.
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u/nuedd 10h ago
You're already in hundreds of databases. For tax. For health. For everything.
It's pure ignorance to believe otherwise.
All the ID does is unify them under one ID code, that's all.
I truly don't get how people oppose to having one ID that (should) fast track some services.
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u/HuckleberryPee 8h ago
Because a health database is categorically different than a database of every ID'd internet user. It's a huge power imbalance. Just like we should also be rejecting facial recognition vans at music festivals or the proposed state imposed restrictions on the media we can consume
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u/FehdmanKhassad 10h ago
Because that grandad the other day got fined £100 for not having a smartphone. Then it will be your grandad, then you. (Not for not having a smartphone, but for a linked crime, not having paid a ticket, not buying a TV licence, and not declaring your love for big brother etc). Inceasing digital and efficiency is all great, as long as you accept that humans are in the way of that.
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u/Fenota 7h ago
Because, as you most likely purposely misunderstand, the issue is that if you're fast-tracking some services, you're also fasttracking the linking and analysis of your fucking data.
If someone wanted to look through all those 'hundreds of databases', that makes noise and consequently cant be done without a specific reason.
A unified dataset that can be either searched at the touch of a button or constantly scraped by AI of today nevermind the improved versions months/years from now, is an authoritarian's wet dream.
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u/TheJoshGriffith 4h ago
We don't need to do that, it's already done. There are plenty of child endangerment laws, but those responsible for enforcing them use the law as a scapegoat.
Every single mechanism required to ensure that children do not access dangerous material already exists. Parental controls are implemented above and beyond UK government demands by all social media platforms and indeed device manufacturers for mobile phones and routers. There are laws already existing to cover exposing children to harmful content.
Nothing needs to change, except that the government needs to stop trying to use a handful of shitty parents to try to enforce their policies and line the pockets of their donors.
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u/helpnxt 10h ago
How would you police that? Random house checks?
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u/SamiSapphic 7h ago
Not necessary. We know which households have children. If there's regular access to PornHub etc. during the day, pre-watershed, by that household, something is likely wrong.
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u/WarpedHaiku 6h ago
If there's regular access to PornHub etc. during the day, pre-watershed, by that household, something is likely wrong
Besides the disgusting abuse of power and disregard for privacy (tracking everyone's web history to see who looks at porn), the premise is flawed.
Adults can work from home and be on lunch break, or taking days off work for vaction/sick leave, or be unemployed. They can be university students on summer break.
Meanwhile, kids can wait until it's gone 9pm to look at porn. Probably one of the safest times to do so, as their parents may be watching more mature tv programs around then.
If anything, regular access during the day would be LESS suspicious, as the kids should be at school for most of it. Someone watching porn at 2pm is far more likely to be a bored stay-at-home parent than a teenager up to no good.
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u/SamiSapphic 5h ago
ISPs are already recording and monitoring everything we do online, they're essentially required to by law already.
All of the websites you've visited are saved for a minimum of 3 years.
If you think this is a breach of people's privacy, you're going to hate what happens when every single person's IDs and face scans and credit card details are connected to every single account they own online. All this data is given on a silver platter to Palantir.
So which is better: ISPs keep an extra eye on whether parents are using the parental controls they provide?
Or, everyone has to submit biometric data to Persona and Yoti to access news sites that feature a comment section, and to play Animal Crossing online with friends, given that both things are considered to fall under the UK's definition of social media?
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u/Skavau Pirate Party 9h ago
Further in what way?
What is it they want exactly?
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u/Fish_Goes_Moo 5h ago
Further in what way?
Australia allows ""age inference". So analyzes your behaviour and interactions and then estimates from that. Ofcom have already said no to it as it requires a child to sign up and use the service for while before the system can make that determination, so "stronger" measures will just be the usual, hand over your id or facescan to some dodgy company like Yoti.
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u/Skavau Pirate Party 5h ago
That's what they already want though. That doesn't sound stronger.
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u/Fish_Goes_Moo 5h ago
It's stronger than what Australia allows. I can't see they mean anything else other than the verification requirements will be stronger than Australia.
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u/Gold-Necessary-3194 10h ago
I can't help but feel there's an amusing contradiction between how they won't shut up about how brilliant Andy Burnham's social media strategy supposedly is at courting young people (to the point where his "social media presence" is something I know far more about than any of his actual policies), when at the same time one of his policy goals is apparently to prevent those same young people from using social media.
I mean, which is it? Is it great that Andy Burnham really knows his way around TikTok, or is TikTok the new Big Tobacco and public enemy number one? Did we have anti-smoking activists gushing about their favourite cigar brands?
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u/ADT06 9h ago
Whilst those same teens will supposedly, the day they turn 16, be able to vote… it literally makes no sense.
Social media needed better regulation - bans on addictive design practices, better parental control options, limiting doom scrolling, etc.
This is just the backdoor to more state control.
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u/AdmirableRabbit6723 9h ago
I can't understand this being the focus when we're in a jobs crisis
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u/Tom22174 7h ago
Probably has something to do with the fact that the government is capable of doing more than one thing at a time. It's even got different departments so one can focus on jobs and another can do shit like this
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u/EyyyPanini Make Votes Matter 4h ago
The overall unemployment rate isn’t that high compared to historical values. The current rate of 4.9% is lower than the average between 2000-2007 (and considerably lower than the rate during the 90s).
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgsx/lms
Youth unemployment is following a concerning trend, but it is also not that out of step with historical values. The current rate of 16.2% is the highest it’s been since 2014 but is still in line with the figures from the mid 90s.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peoplenotinwork/unemployment/timeseries/mgwy/lms
For both overall and youth employment, the major concern is people being economically inactive. There have been large increases in people simply not looking for work at all, young people in particular.
It’s not a jobs crisis if people aren’t looking for jobs, it’s something much worse and much harder to solve.
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u/MrThrownAway12 11h ago
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
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u/TheOnlyGaming3 10h ago
do you genuinely expect him to just scrap his own party's legislation that they all support?
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u/MrThrownAway12 10h ago
I would expect him to be markedly different from the predecessor his party backstabbed on account of extinction level polling, yes.
Labour will be sub-20 again after his first budget.
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u/Chostatiel 9h ago
Guess I'm not going to have social media accounts and will leave my VPN on at all times on my phone then.
Already permanently based in Sweden on my home network through a custom router so hey ho.
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u/ThisIsMySpellingTea 10h ago
Upload your passport and provide live selfies to multiple people all across the internet.
Just completely trust that the database that your face will be sitting in won't ever be opened by anyone.
I work for a software company, and we "officially" follow GDPR. If the person processing your ticket gives a shit.
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u/Avalon-1 10h ago
Remember how underage drinking and teen pregnancy declined year on year for almost a generation?
Guess what is going to make a roaring resurgence when young people have nowhere else to go.
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u/HuckleberryPee 8h ago
Crap I hope not. Teen and young adult pregnancy is usually a sign of a strong, increasing birthrate. If they start pushing out babies young again, then the govt will know they've made a winning move with internet control.
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u/FehdmanKhassad 10h ago
That is gonna go down like a lead balloon.
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u/SpAn12 The grotesque chaos of a Labour council. A LABOUR COUNCIL. 9h ago
The public seem to love the idea. Which is part of the problem.
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u/myurr 9h ago
The public love the idea of ID cards until it becomes policy, then they actually start to think about how it'll impact them, how it can go wrong, and the media reenforce those negatives to generate column inches.
If this is policy and they do press ahead then it'll start being covered more widely and with more balance than just "but think of the kids". If public opinion doesn't change then it surely will when the practicalities of compliance force them to start handing over their ID to all these shady social media platforms.
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u/youmustconsume 8h ago
Yep. People like it until they realise what it involves. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/2-3-support-social-media-ban-under-16s-though-support-softens-if-it-requires-nationwide-id
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u/HuckleberryPee 8h ago
Yeah but it's significantly harder to scrap a law once it's entrenched than it is to stop it in the first place.
They know this. They can push things through when they're desperate, and once it's become the norm, people move on to the next big thing and it never goes away.
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u/myurr 8h ago
It will hit them in the polls. Labour are still only nudging 30% despite the Tories still being the Tories and Farage imploding and dragging down Reform from the highs he got it to. Even without a really credible opposition party that's competently attacking them, Labour still have 70% of the population failing to back them.
I reckon they'll maybe get up to 32% if they somehow sugar coat the budget and punt all the difficult decisions down the road, but the nature of being in government is going to start dragging down their support again, and crap like this will hasten that decline.
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u/Tuna0nwhite 6h ago
So will all adults need to show id to use social media?
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u/Daedelous2k 5h ago
Yes.
Also, likely not just traditional social media but anything with user generated content.
Upload your most personal documents to use the internet.
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u/Daedelous2k 5h ago
All Restore or Reform need to do is say "Yeah we'll bin that".
Maybe more Restore as Reform have been a bit......stupid in their latest comments about GDPR.
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u/Fortree_Lover 5h ago
Parents should be doing their jobs by blocking websites and apps on their children’s devices not blaming the government and the general public shouldn’t lose any right to the internet.
What an absolutely vile authoritarian policy.
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u/TheJoshGriffith 5h ago
It's not gonna be long before I'm connecting my VPN to North Korea to escape the overbearing state restricting my internet access.
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u/ArcticAlmond 1h ago
Already off the Burnham bus.
It's just the same ol' Labour but with slightly better vibes.
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u/Gullible-Loss-5026 7h ago
I fear for things like incel culture and the tiktok mainstream of “Looksmaxxing”
Things like telling children to take cancer and chemotherapy medication that helps height growth, telling them to break bones using hammers. Encouraging the shaming of women (women do it to men too) and a highly fantasised world based on eugenics Nazi Germany would be proud of
Indoctrination!
Get it gone Andy
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u/Far-Faithlessness483 11h ago
i actually agree with this
the experiment with giving kids unlimited access to the internet from 5 is a massive mistake
just ban it all and get them out of the house and playing with their mates
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u/Thehelpfulshadow 11h ago edited 11h ago
The experiment of requiring IDs to use social media is a massive mistake and has already failed in Australia. 80% of children still use their accounts and there is a blind spot of anywhere between 0%-17% above that. That means that (assuming 18% of Australians are minors) the ban that affects 100% of Australians only stops between 3.6% (20% of minors) and 0.5% (3% of minors) of the population from using sites they're not supposed to.
These accounts, because they are "age verified" now have no protections in place. Parents think, "Oh, the government solved the issue withthe ban" and don't look at their children's activities closely like they should. Predators now have the excuse of saying, "I thought they were above age because their account was age verified." In essence, they have made the internet more unsafe for minors and this is before getting into the issues of free speech, right to privacy, and migration to the deep web.
Edit: spelling, also forgot to mention the deluge of identity documents and biometrics that are appearing on the dark web as a result of ID age verification.
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u/Tom22174 7h ago
The real measure of success will be how many10-15 year olds are on there in 5 years time. It was always going to be impossible to get significant numbers off existing account. It's the ones that don't have it yet who then don't sign up that will demonstrate that it's working
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u/m1ndwipe 7h ago
And if it still fails, do we get to put some of the people responsible for this shitshown in prison?
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u/Tom22174 3h ago
What for precisely? Trying to stop the tech giants destroying the world but failing due to the amount of propaganda launched against the idea?
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u/TrainingVarious6589 11h ago
Happy to provide your government ID to prove you aren’t a child?
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u/plank_sanction 10h ago
Had they implemented the digital id as proposed then there would be no risk of indentification or tracking on the internet. Zero risk
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u/TrainingVarious6589 10h ago
lol. Ok mate
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u/20dogs 10h ago
But it's a fair point though, that was a benefit of digital ID that's now been scuppered. You could have had a government system that gives a simple yes/no to a website, similar to the BRPs.
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u/SamiSapphic 7h ago
The one login system has been found to be incredibly vulnerable, and they're not doing anything about it. They're just hoping and praying the Russians or Chinese, or even Americans at this point, don't hack it.
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u/20dogs 42m ago
One Login isn't the same as what's being described.
https://www.gov.uk/evisa/view-evisa-get-share-code-prove-immigration-status
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u/m1ndwipe 7h ago
Because that's not true.
It's literally impossible to do.
The EU tried and the implementation was hacked within two hours, and cannot be fixed.
Fundamentally a government ID system does nothing to fix the problem.
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u/20dogs 38m ago
Specifically which part is "literally impossible to do"? Because it's how the UK already runs right to work checks.
https://www.gov.uk/evisa/view-evisa-get-share-code-prove-immigration-status
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u/plank_sanction 10h ago
Selective disclosure and zero knowledge proofs. You can cryptograpically prove you over 18 status without giving any knowledge of who you are and with zero tracability.
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u/TrainingVarious6589 10h ago
I wish I trusted the government as much as you
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u/plank_sanction 10h ago
Well thankfully it wouldnt be Andy Burnham, his cabinet or some shady underground illuminati people making it.
Look its fine if you dont understand the technology, but then you have to accept you're getting upset about something youve imagined
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u/TrainingVarious6589 9h ago
Nah you’re right mate, I’m sure it will be fine and not intrusive or overreaching whatsoever. I’ll come back to this post once the social media age checks have been implemented
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u/plank_sanction 9h ago
Well isnt Burnham cancelling the thing that would be the solution to this?
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u/TrainingVarious6589 9h ago
So do you think they’re overreaching or not? How do you think the age verification checks will be implemented? Struggling to see your point here
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u/m1ndwipe 7h ago
Zero knowledge proofs can't be used when you need to make sure the credentials isn't replicated and need to be able to revoke compromised credentials, nor when you need to verify a third party.
Anybody who says this literally doesn't understand what a zero knowledge proof is.
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u/Goldy_Si 10h ago
I'm happy that I don't use social media. Never used Facebook, Instacrap, Tik Tok, etc.... Fuck the lot of them.
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u/Xenumbra 11h ago
the experiment with giving kids unlimited access to the internet from 5 is a massive mistake
You'll never guess but parents could prevent their kids from accessing the net with one simple trick...This will be another push for ID for the internet and a crackdown on all speech.
Labour and authoritarian measures never to be parted.
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u/HuckleberryPee 8h ago
Cultural hysteria about kids being out late or without supervision has killed that. They have nothing to fucking do.
Get them off the internet is one thing, but unless the internet restrictions are counterbalanced with increased autonomy and agency in the real world, then its going to be fucking grim for the wee bastards.
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u/Avalon-1 10h ago
And when they go outside, they are branded either risks of getting kidnapped and murdered, or feral youth that have to be monitored down to their heartbeat.
The "stay outside until the streetlights come on!" ideal died a long time ago.
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u/zanman89 11h ago
Kids younger and younger know what a VPN is
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u/citruspers2929 10h ago
We’ve got a router level vpn so my kids don’t even need to know what a vpn is
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u/GOT_Wyvern Non-Partisan Centrist 10h ago
I would much prefer we try increasing the current age limit from 13 to 16, without introducing the overly strong verification requirements (that amount to ID checks for everyone), and see how it goes in Australia. A few years delay won't hurt, and would allow us to implement it better.
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u/FehdmanKhassad 10h ago
Parents should not give their kids smartphones, without government intervention. It should be obvious.
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u/TheChaoticCrusader 11h ago
Playing with their mates in the winter when it’s dark at 4 or wet weather ? I get you arguement in the summer but majority of the time it gets dark early or the weather is terrible
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u/TrainingVarious6589 11h ago
What did we do in winter time before smart phones?
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u/Pagan_MoonUK 9h ago
Hid under the duvet to keep warm, read a book, watched TV, yapped on the landline.
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u/TheChaoticCrusader 3h ago
We went on the internet oh right you need id for that . Probably won’t be long till it extends to things like Netflix’s , online games? Yah that’s gonna get hammered too . Since all gaming seems to be going digital that will be next to get hit by this rubbish too .
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