The government’s announcement today of a ban on social media for under-16s doesn’t show it in a good light. The three-month consultation that preceded it was frankly a sideshow, the decision in principle having been taken much earlier; the announcement was clearly rushed out precipitately with one eye on the Makerfield by-election; and there is something very rum about the choice to target X, Youtube and Reddit but to leave the young free to drink their fill from centrist dads’ hangout Bluesky (which, incidentally, has its own darker corners: see for example here).
It is also a bad idea. The responsibility for supervising what children read and see should lie squarely with parents, who after all can dictate the internet setup in their homes and choose which, if any, smartphones to give their offspring. The government could have subtly reinforced this idea, for instance by requiring that all phones and routers sold have parental controls set to ‘on’ by default, only changeable by the account holder. The idea that this is something for the state and its none-too-subtle mega-agency Ofcom sends an unfortunate message.
Furthermore, however good it may sound in terms of child protection, this proposal is apt in practice to throw out a whole nursery of babies to dispose of a comparatively small amount of bath-water. For example, as has already been pointed out, there is much wholesome educational content on Youtube, ranging from maths to history to current affairs: schools indeed increasingly encourage the young to draw on it for the purposes of homework and further study. Again, teenagers often have a keen interest in computing, and for this Reddit is one of the best sources. But no dice. Both, it seems, must be denied to anyone without access to an older person’s phone or tablet.
Age verification, too, we must remember, is something that comports noticeable restrictions not only on children but on all of us. It is insulting to tell the entire adult population of this country that they can’t surf X without providing the sort of proof of age appropriate for a porn site. It also increases the risks of data breaches relating to the extra information that has to be provided.
And this is before you get to the other unintended consequences. Ofcom can huff and puff as much as it likes, but it can only enforce its age verification rules against platforms with assets in the UK. Despite its risible antics in trying to dictate to American platforms with no UK presence what they can make available in America for possible download here, in practice its writ stops at our shores. The result? Kept off mainstream sites amenable to Ofcom’s orders here, it is a racing certainty that a goodly number of young people will simply move on to much darker and less desirable places in the US, Russia and elsewhere.
Behind this there is a much bigger point. Whatever Keir Starmer says, there are big questions over whether any of this is actually enforceable, something the Australians, who brought in a similar ban a short time ago, have already found out. Children can, and undoubtedly will, importune friends or elder siblings over 16 to lend them their phones or tablets, which at a stroke defeats the object. And they may not even need to do that. Platforms are told to age-check anyone surfing from the UK. But a VPN, yours for about £40 a year, can spoof your location at the touch of a button: Lagos, Chicago, Moscow, you choose. Job done. No age verification. Not surprisingly, VPN sales went through the roof as soon as the latest plans became a possibility.
If the legislation can be evaded easily, the harm done may be limited
Ironically, this last point may actually be a reason for not opposing this bad legislation (which it must be admitted is surprisingly popular) too hard. If it lets the government say it has taken on Big Tech, but in practice can be evaded quite easily, then the harm done by it may be limited. There is also a further point. When it comes to threats to online freedom, there are numerous more strategically important hills to occupy and potentially die on. Ministers, for instance, have reportedly mulled banning the purchase of VPN services without identity and age verification: this has very severe privacy implications, since it would effectively end online anonymity. Add to this proposals to require all computers and phones to contain software to scan all images taken, and eliminate dodgy ones unless the owner proves their age, and unspecified plans to allow the government to force websites to eliminate misleading content in times of crisis, and we face more than enough serious menaces. These are the battles worth fighting. Better, one might think, to keep our powder dry for them, rather than waste time with this morning’s inept and largely ineffective proposals from an inept and largely ineffective administration.
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