UK to ban social media for kids under 16, may impose overnight curfews
Critics say bans push kids to riskier alternatives and can be beaten with VPNs.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/uk-to-ban-social-media-for-kids-under-16-may-impose-overnight-curfews/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social
This whole nonsense is utterly un-enforceable in my view. The kids will always find a way to 'do whatever they want'. And if I had still had one of those younger people around me, I would personally buy them a burner phone for that shit. If that failed, we would be having a geeky chat about VPNs.
@bytebro @arstechnica Creating hurdles to things that have been proven to harm children is good. Parents can decide to do it earlier if they want by just creating a bespoke id for them.
Full disclosure, I deeply regret letting my kids on early due to a transatlantic move. They cannot unsee or unlearn.
@engideer @bytebro my kids did find some comfort online (I could argue it caused them to have lower expectations of their parents when coming out, but they were luckier than many of their friends in that respect). They also found relentless bullying that resulted in extraordinary suffering and, in their community, suicides.
The disgusting fact is that the places of comfort online are also used as honeypots for bad people to target their hate.
I don’t have the answer to this. Is it like abortion (based on science before 12 weeks is good, after 12 weeks is bad) or driver’s license (complete this training and then explore on your own).
Either way our kids are suffering. Parents have had the ability to manage their kids access and have decided (largely) not to. Governments will infringe privacy with this legislation. Sophie’s choice.
Ars Technica
Bytebro 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇬🇱
Marc Scheffel
Maya
retro connection people inet place
Tim Zee