UK police chiefs call for ban on social media for under-16s

Why tf would anyone care about the police chiefs' opinions? Did they pick up a graduate degree in psychology before becoming state ~~thugs~~ agents?

It's technically impossible, so a pretty pointless discussion.
And it's dangerous too. Even if they legislated them off the major platforms, there's a million other ways to communicate online. Hundreds of DMs, talkers, games, live chats, streams, even IRC still exists. And pushing them into the darker corners makes it far more likely for them to be exposed to coercive and controlling types. Extremism, child abuse, bullying, suicide encouragement and so on.
- Or even worse, they might come to lemmy!

Lmao maybe they should wait and see how Australian ban later this year turns out to be because it's looking like an absolute clown show rn.
- It's basically unenforceable so I presume not a whole lot will change

Yeah this is gonna work as well as "you must be over 13 to use this site"
- Looks like they think this will work better than telling social media companies that they have a social responsibility
  
  of course it will, the real scam meat is in the 30-60 year olds.
- They can require ID verification of all users, as is done in some states in the US to access pornography sites.
  
  And that is a gross overreach

I'm not against this. I genuinely believe social media is damaging to young people (well... I believe it's damaging to us all, but if adults want to then it's their choice).
However, I don't see how this could be realistically enforced.
- The idea in Australia is to place the responsibility on the social media companies.
  The government isnt filtering traffic or enforcing behaviour. It is fining companies if they don't implement a form of age verification that is compliant with privacy laws.
  We can't even make these companies pay tax and obey other laws so I am not very optimistic but at least it raises awareness of the problem.
  
  problem here is as follows:
  how would you verify the age of someone without government id?
  the answer very simple: you can't.
  there is no (reliable) way to verify ID without government involvement, period.
  "but it's the companies responsibility!"
  well, how are they going to verify anyone's age?
  that's right! by checking some form of government ID (passport, drivers license, etc.)
  how would they know wether an ID is legit or not? by comparing to a government database.
  so it's the government checking either way.
  theoretically you could implement a hash-based system that's secure by comparing only hashed values against a government API without ever actually saving user information anywhere, similar to how "login with google/apple/facebook" and so forth work, but i doubt there's any government willing to spend the cash on such a system.
  because that would actually work and could be made in privacy respecting way.
  but because surveillance is the goal of any government trying to implement bullshit like this, it won't ever be done this way...
  remember: it's always mass surveillance. never about "the kids", or "the crime", or whatever straw-man-of-the-week they pull out their ass at any given time.
- I'm absolutely against this.
  I genuinely believe social media is damaging to young people
  As do I. I still am against the government making these decisions, especially for kids as old as 16. At 16, kids should be curious about what the government is hiding, and access to information should absolutely be available. However, it should also be under the direction of parents, at least until they leave the house.
  Parents should be the ones regulating this, not the government. Some kids are mature enough to handle things like social media at 16, perhaps younger, while others aren't. Parents should be on the hook for allowing their kids access to things that could be damaging, but could also be an incredibly useful tool.
  I say this as a parent. I want to be the one who decides what my kids should and should not access, and I will peacefully ignore this law and use a VPN or whatever I need to in order to evade this ban. I don't know what that looks like in the UK, but I'm absolutely going to do this in my area once my kid hits their first block (my US state implemented age requirements for SM, and if my kids hit that, I'll teach them to use a VPN).
  
  I still am against the government making these decisions, especially for kids as old as 16.
  This is for under-16s.
  And why specifically be against the government protecting kids' safety in this way? They already do it in countless other ways, from rules about how you're allowed to discipline children, medication standards, age ratings, restrictions on public drinking, preventing driving, preventing gun ownership, etc.
  Why shouldn't the government make any decisions for this aspect of children's safety, but all others are ok?
  Some kids are mature enough to handle things like social media at 16
  This is for under-16s. Under-16s are not 16. They are under 16.
  
  I agree completely. The healthiest our online ecosystem has ever been was when parents were required, and empowered, to make decisions for their own children about appropriate internet usage.
- It's damaging because the Internet evolved in the conditions of governments not doing their job at catching criminals, but at the same time taking upon themselves rights and responsibilities they shouldn't have. The former made it impractical to use more cozy and personal spaces, like personal webpages with guestbooks and such, and the latter put upon webmasters the responsibilities of law enforcement which law enforcement should fulfill itself. It's as if home owners were responsible for a crime happening on their property, and the police wouldn't help when called, it would instead arrest them for not preventing it.
  Law enforcement doesn't need more rights, it had all it needed 20 years ago, even 30 years ago. It needs to fulfill its responsibilities.
  Those jerks both want to avoid actually working and to censor what you can say. Fuck them.
- By age checking everybody connecting to social media
  
  Which would require submitting personal information, like IDs, to social media organizations. You could do it better (i.e. through a disinterested third party or the government), but how likely is that to actually happen?
  I'm against it mostly on privacy grounds, but also on free speech grounds. Parents should be the ones deciding this, not governments.
  
  But what qualifies as social media? We can all probably agree that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, etc. count, but what about say Discord or WhatsApp? How about browsing older forums (like open ones where you don't need an account to read them)? What about news articles or blogs with a comment section? Is a wiki social media? Depending on how you define it, the majority of the internet could be considered social media.
  Plus there are plenty of sites that just won't ever bother to try to comply. For example, I live in one of the more stupid states in the US that has required age verification for porn sites, PornHub has complied by just blocking their site in the state with a notice that they won't implement a system like that for privacy reasons. But they and their sister sites are the only ones I've seen that have bothered to make any changes. The same will inevitably happen with social media. You're just going to push kids to shadier corners of the internet that don't care about laws, and they're gonna end up radicalized by nazis, or taken advantage of in worse ways.
  The whole problem is parents who don't want to be parents and tell their kids they can't have a smartphone. And I get that the dumbphone market is kinda limited, and that some parents just don't care what their kids are exposed to. But trying to fix this problem by changing the internet is never going to work. The only way to fix the problem is to have a spine and make appropriate changes IRL - like banning smartphones for underaged kids in school, or show your full distopian side and prosecute parents who let their kids use social media.

I call for a ban on police chiefs

Telling 15 year-olds what to do famously always works.
- By that logic we shouldn't ban anything for teenagers. But we do: smoking, gambling, alcohol, etc.
- exactly

I somewhat agree. Social Media has ita positive sides on youth, here and there, but i think at this point the negative outweighs the positive
If at least kids would be on non corporate platforms like Lemmy where not every idea they get is whatever the corporation wants you to have, I might be more open to it but as it is today, teenagers will be fed whatever shit ideas it is that their algorithm shoves in their mouths. Today, that is a lot of highly conservative red pill men propaganda bull crap.

social media bans for teenagers is never about safety and always about blocking access to queer support systems and stifling dissent.

So censorship then, just with more excuses
- Do you consider porn being 18+ to be censorship?
  
  Have you considered the fact that, you cannot read between the lines ?
  Also the age of consent is 16 in most countries, you have no clue how fascism works, do you ??
  It always starts with something acceptible & then a chain-reaction

How soon before other countries also follow suit ...
- I thought they already did this in Australia
  
  The bill has been passed, but doesn't come into effect until next year.
- There have been a lot of bills around this general idea. In my state in the US, for example, we passed a law but I don't know what enforcement looks like.
  I'm against it in all its forms. Parents should be the ones responsible here, not governments.

Kids are growing up, testing limits and learning, That is what kids do!
I think that a ban won't fix this, but instead ban anonymous use. If you have to use your real name, most behave much nicer. You become accountable, and that is a good thing for everyone to learn.
Also perhaps a minimum age of say 13 could be a good idea - you need to reach a certain age before you are able to foresee consequences and understand how your actions effect others.

cringe
- Get off the Fediverse Zuckerberg. It's as dangerous for mental health as cigarettes are for physical health.
  
  Whether that's true is irrelevant. This isn't something the government should be getting involved in, outside of prosecuting parents for neglecting their kids.
  I don't let my kids use social media because they aren't ready for it. If they are ready for it, but my government says they can't, I'm going to use technical means (i.e. VPN, having them use my account, etc) to subvert the law. It should be my choice if my kids can access something, not the government's.
  If the government wants to tackle this, they should be working with parents on the issue. Maybe sponsor a FOSS content blocker or work with social media orgs to create a concept of custodial accounts, and have some way for that to work w/ the FOSS content blocker. But don't unilaterally ban something because you think it's harmful.
  If I want to smoke, that should 100% be my right, provided I'm not bothering other people. If my kids smoke, that should be 100% on me for being a negligent parent and allowing them to do something harmful (assuming I should know about it). The government shouldn't be making parenting decisions for me, that's my responsibility.
  
  This doesn't make sense. Forbidding social media is as stupid as forbidding video games, it's old people not trying to find the real cause and instead passing measures which will be completely useless. Social media doesn't necessarily mean Meta