Electronic Frontier Foundation
This week, the UK debated legislative proposals seeking to ban young people from social media platforms. To get situated with what’s been happening and what it all means, check out our primer. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/03/uk-politicians-continue-miss-point-latest-social-media-ban-proposal
UK Politicians Continue to Miss the Point in Latest Social Media Ban Proposal

The UK is moving forward with its efforts to ban social media for young people. Ahead of this week’s House of Lords debate on the topic, we’re getting you situated with a primer on what’s been happening and what it all means.

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Mar 28 at 6:59pmTypefully
Show threadShamhattMar 28
@eff Fools errand, something like trying to hold water using a colander. Not even worth complaining about it, just sit and watch "not-Churchill" making a joke of himself once again. The only plus is going to be watching the big social media mammoths (pun maybe intended) melting away amidst the idiotic legislation.
Show threadChewie6d ago
@Shamhatt @eff If we aren't careful, we might have to melt away from here too....
Show threadShamhatt6d ago
@chewie @eff Hopefully it won't come to that, @Mastodon operates a policy of maximum privacy that makes it more resilient to authoritarian interventions. I still think that people will have the upper hand in the quest for cybernetic freedom but this doesn't diminish the great job done by @eff, they are an important part of it.
Show threadChewie6d ago

@Shamhatt @eff @Mastodon I hope so too, and I'm sure 99% of servers would be able to keep running, and no-one would be any the wiser, but the stupid OSA here in the UK has scared smaller forums etc to close or block UK users:
https://onlinesafetyact.co.uk/in_memoriam/

Whether they were being over-cautious or not wasn't helped by various Ofcom compliance webinars, one of which basically said "don't worry, it will only cost around £2000 to get a lawyers' advice" 😡

We need to try and reign in the number of stupid laws that are trying to fix the problem poorly, rather than fixing the actual problems.

Also, I wouldn't say "maximum privacy" - nothing is encrypted on the server or end-to-end, although it seems the devs are working in that.

In Memoriam - OnlineSafetyAct.co.uk