Because bans have worked so well before. /s
A more appropriate headline would read something like... "UK government shows their incompetence by attempting to block children from social media."
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2026
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..While allowing the real abusers of power to continue on. The bans are targeting the wrong people - children but also teenagers shouldnt have their rights barred because the bad guys exist. Its the bad guys who should face the consequences.
Its likely a precursor to VPNs and identity checks but I do support social media getting out of kids lives - it should just result in large fines for the company ad parent.
It's probably time I should get off my ass and write to my Labour representative saying I'm voting for any other party until they repeal this (and the "online safety act").
I hate social media but I hate "papers, please" to use the web even more.
I've arrived at the same conclusion and will be writing to my Labour MP as well - we let the pot boil too long on this unfortunately.
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(12 replies)
It won't work lol
Sure it'll work, adults will identify themselves online, which is the point, and VPN usage will go up, guess where they're gonna hit next.
How are they going to enforce a VPN ban?
About as effectively as they keep kids off social media. It's just ratcheting up the technical requirements for anything approaching anonymity, and more get lost along the way.
I can’t believe YouTube got included in the ban.
Good, youtube is sloppy shit and they are just as predatory a the rest.
Hope it encourages then to drop shorts to a separste app.
I guess I don’t participate in the social aspect of YouTube. I just watch videos and occasionally give a thumbs up. No idea on their business practices
Anonymous replacement/workaround being cooked up in 3, 2, 1...
At least they did something right. Social media is made to get people addicted. I close my Facebook account because I noticed the feeds I was getting was just pure brain rot, low denominator slop to get people to keep sliding the feed. They should go further, for 18 years old and over.
I know that this is my particular case and yours, but can't agree more. I stopped using YouTube when I started noticing how the shitty content affected me indirectly. Is not like I really care that much, but I wanted to kill myself each fucking time I (who never searched shit like this) open YouTube and the first video was like: MAN = BAD. KILL ALL MAN. END OF THE WORLD, YOUTUBERS THAT I DON'T GIVE A FUCK "FIGHTING" EACH OTHER TO GAIN VIEWS. 😱.
So in the same way I like Lemmy (because you actually get the content you want, not sponsored shit) I started to use YouShit again through LibreTube, and now I'm happy with my cat videos.
They should implement this where the onus is on parents to prevent kids from accessing the sites.
Lol! Parents take responsibility for raising their kids? In 2026? That's a good one... this is the age of iPad parenting. Ain't no one expecting parents to do the work.
Here is how I wish we would solve this problem :
Every adult citizen gets an electronic ID card. Said smartcard let's you authenticate on government websites (FIDO2). And maybe it could sign your vote for referendums if that's possible in your country. Every smartcard would be secured with a PIN code.
It also can create an anonymous "adult cryptographic token" to register on adult sites, gambling sites and social networks.
Parents could create a token for their childs but they take responsibility for any illegal use, for example in this case using social networks below 16 years old.
Edit : This seems to already be a project in the EU with the EUDI Wallet. It is supposed to start deployment before the end of 2026. Too bad the UK left the EU, this EUDI wallet has features to prove anonymously that you are an adult...
Now what really will happen is politics will say "think of the children" and use that opportunity for more surveillance of their population.
It's too bad technical problems are answered by politicians and not engineers. We are also very late in term of digital ID cards. Everybody should have for free the means to authenticate online and do so anonymously when needed. We live in a digital world, we need the tools to evolve in it.
It is imperative you can vote without others knowing how you voted (at least here in the UK..). Electronic voting is inferrior to paper when it comes to trustworthness of recording an anonymous vote, counting the result and preventing mass vote fraud.
We already have a hardcopy ID to travel internationally or ID to drive vehicles. The risks of an electronic ID being easily copied would have to get me visiting other solar systems or driving a time machine before I considered it. Something tells me the paper options would continue working at first but eventually this idea will be forced on people.
I was expecting skepticism about that in my comment and choose purposefully the word "referendum" for that reason.
I dont think electronic voting is ready for important electoral votes but it may be sufficiently secure for referendums that are fully digital. In France, you can sign petition to force certain questions to be asked to the government. A cryptographic mean to sign that petition would be very useful and in this case prevent people from attempting to sign multiple times.
We already have a hardcopy ID to travel internationally or ID to drive vehicles. The risks of an electronic ID being easily copied would have to get me visiting other solar systems or driving a time machine before I considered it.
I think the opposite. Standard papers are and always have been fraudulently copied by criminals. Cryptography can make it impossible to copy an ID card the same way it makes it impossible to clone your credit card.
The main risk is for governments to try to emit fake ID cards for imaginary citizens, but they were already doing it mostly for their "spies".
I honestly think it will completely stop criminals from copying papers or creating fake ones. At least as long as the government takes security of the ID card emitting body is taken seriously and audited transparently.
Really a lot of your criticism of digital means applies very much to older paper based systems. I personally participated in counting votes in my local elections and despite many counts by multiple people, we didn't get the same count everytime. So while mass fraud is very unlikely, the count of all elections is not really accurate.
But again my original point was for this digital ID card to be used only for referendums and not electoral voting. Anonymity is not necessary when citizens petition for a cause to be heard.
It is true that paper ID can be forged but where it differs is the inability to do it at such a large scale compared to electronic. Slightly different results can be attributed to human error as it is very difficult to change a single paper vote when other parties are watching. It's impossible to have confidence in a black box electronic system (even if the code and machine were auditable, who's to ssy what it's actually doing at run-time when may users have access to it).
Software is written by humans and humans make mistakes, therefore software contains mistakes. You could perhaps argue electronic ID could be difficult to copy but the mere suggestion of a bug should push over the idea of it being impossible.
Perfection is the enemy of good.
I was led to believe people on Lemmy are more technically minded. So can you explain to me how you don't think the government has the technical capabilities to already monitor internet usage of its citizens? The DWP can already access your internet history if they suspect benefit fraud already, for example...
So can you explain to me how you don't think the government has the technical capabilities to already monitor internet usage of its citizens?
Never said or even implied that.
Then what is the problem with the bill? Everyone is up in arms about censorship and monitoring their identity but that already happens. This bill just means it's harder for kids to access garbage sites? The capabilities to do all the things people think this bill will achieve already do exist in any case...
"The negative things people are upset about already happen, so we should be fine with those things being made easier and happening more."
As my comment said, I'm not against the ban of kids accessing social networks. But I'm against age verification laws that are not protecting anonymity which is in my opinion the logical next step for politicians.
My comment is very much explaining why I want people to be able to verify their age anonymously.
And no, just because governments surveil their population doesn't mean we should make it even easier with privacy invading age verification laws.
And my point is you have already lost the ability of privacy long ago..
Anonymous age verification? You are not anonymous on the internet to begin with. Even doing what you've suggested won't reduce the ability for the government and even data brokers to identify you.
Talk about yourself.
You might have surrendered but many have not.
I'm on linux, extensively use encryption, I'm not on any social network beside Lemmy, so I strongly disagree that anonymity is dead online.
Even doing what you've suggested won't reduce the ability for the government and even data brokers to identify you.
That confirms you didn't read my comment.
EUID has exactly the feature I'm describing in my post. Being able to prove your an adult without divulging your identity.
If you think using Linux, encryption, vpns and Lemmy makes you anonymous to any states or data brokers that want to identify you then you are naive at best.
I have not surrendered my anonymity, I recognised and accepted that in order to have it, a lot of bad things become possible, and the damage it causes... It's just not worth.
That's an entirely different subject though, my point remains. You are not anonymous to governments or data brokers. This bill won't decrease your level of privacy, it will only make it more difficult for children to access social media, which currently is plagued with all sorts of harmful content. This bill is a net positive.
Believe what you want.
But don't point your finger toward people that do their best to maximize their privacy.
Your illusion of privacy shouldn't prevent an attempt to stop children being radicalised and accessing extreme content.. it is having a profound impact on society. First generation ever recorded to be more right winged from the get go? Fuck that... Do you not see the type of country this will be in 20 years time if we don't prevent kids accessing state level propaganda?
You fell for the trap of thinking that you can only protect childrens by accepting to sacrifice privacy.
My post was clearly pushing for doing both :
Proving anonymously that you are an adult without giving your identity.
Again I have to repeat I'm not against preventing childrens from accessing social networks.
Where we disagree is that you think you have to give up on some privacy to achieve that goal. I don't.
Now let's agree that we disagree and I will let you give your faceid to shady businesses and see them leak two weeks later.
sorry but this is written like the writer does not know computers.
sure, lets make an unverifiable blackbox digital system for making digital passes that is somehow trustworthy, because.. why exactly? oh yeah because the news said on the TV it is safe and secure, so it must be so!
and sure, lets allow voting with the unverifiable blackbox digital system, and lets just pretend that your vote cannot be forged at dozens of places on the way to the vote counters.
Everybody should have for free the means to authenticate online and do so anonymously when needed.
anonymous authentication is a contradiction.
We live in a digital world, we need the tools to evolve in it.
no amount of tech will fix the problems of the unverifiable blackbox digital systems. you as a vote counter can trace the paper ballot from the booth to the counting event, and you can be assured the submitted ballots cannot be modified without someone going to the ballot box and opening it. but none of that can be said about computers. you can't inspect the electrical signals, you wouldn't be able to do that even with an utopistic fully open hardware computer.
How about we make the web safe for everyone. There is no need for gambling and other harmful things, as it impacts everyone - this isnt an age problem.
This isn't only a technical problem, but also an human rights, and youth rights problem. And right now, that anonymous I'd thing will only punish the people the most while corporations publishing harmful algorithms stay blameless.
So free reign for censorship so long as someone alleges harm?
So free reign for censorship so long as someone alleges harm?
So in your mind protecting people from proven harms is censorship? Isnt this what you essentially are advocating for here?
Side note, censorship is not what I advocate for, but a free internet thats safe for everyone. If regulation is censorship then you clearly need to look up the definitions.
You are again assuming that "proven harms" is not a term that can be manipulated. How would you feel about a potential future government banning anything about trans/gay people because it (according to them) has proven harm against children? Its not really that much of a hypothetical either as numerous states in the USA are heading down that route.
The whole premise of proven harms is that it is not manipulated - but proven. Stop trying to change the narrative, when the fact is, that harms which correspond to children also apply to other ages - thats the thing where talking about.
I'm not assuming, I am stating this, as 'proven' doesnt change meaning (otherwise its just misinformation).
I'm not changing the narrative, I am pointing out that there is no objective standard for proven harms, at best in a cohesive society you can get a general agreement on something like that, but there is always going to be the possibility of it being manipulated by a bad actor in power. Do you really think it would be beyond a hard right government to dredge up some "studies" showing that the "gay agenda" is damaging kids?
We all know its bollocks but that wouldn't stop them abusing a precedent set now.
Yes, there is a possibility that a malicious actor may fabricate "studies", im not denying that - in fact I agree with your comment.
It is important to realise that by supporting such efforts people will get hurt. Of course, banning isnt a valid option, and certainly not bans which concentrate within a particular minority.
It is those who let this happen that should dace the consequences - not the people, not the minorities and not anyone (regardless of gender, race or age). It may have appeared that I support banning but I dont.
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