Under-16s will be banned from using social media, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced.

Starmer says social media is making children unhappy, making it easier for bullies to abuse children, and is “designed to be addictive”. A ban would give children more time, security, and more freedom to grow up - as well as more opportunities, he adds.

“That is all any parent wants. They want to know that Britain will be better for their children, that they will get a fair chance,” the PM says in a speech in Downing Street.

Starmer adds that the government is “not prepared to compromise” on the safety and happiness of children - and that includes in the regulation and enforcement of this ban. He says the government has listened to and learned from countries like Australia, where a similar ban has already been introduced.

    • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      It should have the Zuck riding the horse. He’s the one pushing for this so the advertisers know if they are showing ads to people and not bots on his platforms.

      • Avicenna@programming.dev
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        8 hours ago

        Nah it is Netanyahu who is riding Keir directly and whipping him at the same time. What a pathetic excuse of a human. Next extension of this will be to jail anyone who says free Palestine in the internet. Such a convincing way to prove there is no genocide lol.

      • GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        He definitely isn’t. He already knows. This is 100% governments wanting to crack down on free speech. Look how many people the UK government already jails for social media posts.

      • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        Imagine you have a strong opinion against some known ongoing genocide. Would you feel safe expressing yourself online about it? Or imagine that your country takes enough turns to become a dystopian nightmare, which for slme reason is extremely common nowadays… would you feel safe speaking against your own government?

        • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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          17 hours ago

          What does any of this has to do with digital ID? I’m using digit ID to access government services and sign documents, not to express my opinions online.

          • GoatSynagogue@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            You’ll have to use it to express your opinions online. That’s the problem, and the whole point of it. They government want to know exactly what every person says on the internet.

            • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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              10 hours ago

              My country had digital ID for 20 years. You’re saying they introduced it only to force age verification decades later? Because they want to do age verification using the EU proposed method, not using our digital IDs.

              • Avicenna@programming.dev
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                8 hours ago

                Why does it have to be originally introduced with oppression in mind? Why not realize it provides a nice framework for it and use it instead? US toyed around with the idea of ID verification for anything that connects to internet. It is probably not going so smoothly. This could as well be a smaller experiment. We are talking about a goverment that jails eighty year olds for saying free palestine, not hard to imagine them wanting to do the same in the internet. It is crazy how far rabid zionist lobies can push goverments into oppressing their citizens.

                • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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                  8 hours ago

                  Many things can be used for online identification and oppression, for example credit cards or cellphones. Why singe out digital ID? Are you going to fight against credit cards and cellphones as well or just digital ID?

                  • Avicenna@programming.dev
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                    3 hours ago

                    Neither credit cards nor cellphones can not be used for the particular kind of oppression mentioned in my post definitely not en masse. They definitely can not be as efficient as ID verification for any kind of oppression. So cellphones and credit cards actually add some value to your life while NOT being very efficient oppression tools. ID verification won’t add anything to your life while harboring capacity for being a very efficient oppression tool. Bad apps in cellphones can violate alot of aspects of your privacy but still not nearly as efficient as a goverment having direct access to online activity tied to a digital ID. So your examples aren’t really relevant.

          • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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            14 hours ago

            If you use it to access government services it’s a thing, but using it to block the underaged from accessing social media it’s a very different situation.

            • ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net
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              12 hours ago

              If you use credit cards to block underage from accessing social media it’s also a different situation. Do you have a credit card?

              • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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                9 hours ago

                Yes, but i dont use it to open up an online forum. The problem isn’t the identification itself but when and why do i need to be identified. I thought this was clear.

                This conversation is becoming silly. If you dont value your privacy online, thats your thing. I would drop internet usage to the minimum if i ever need to identify myself to use trivial shit like gaming or accessing social media.

                  • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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                    7 hours ago

                    Sorry, i edited my comment on the way and didnt thought you would see it so quickly.

                    But we arent debating the existance of IDs but their implementation for accessing social media. Nobody would argue the usefulness of credit cards identifying who is doing the purchase, or as you said, using it to validate a signature.

                    The problem is the usage not the IDs themselves