In perhaps the most on brand British reaction to the harms of social media imaginable Keir Starmer has announced that under 16s will be banned from Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Fundamentally unworkable (just watch VPN usage surge, as with Australia’s ban) it’s also the perfect get out clause for tech companies. They may complain about it now but the absolution of responsibility for harms done to kids will only ever do them favours in the future. They no longer need to change anything, any harms are now entirely on the parents and the kids who didn’t do what they were told. It’s the perfect atomisation of blame even as multi-billion pound companies continue to use algorithmic manipulation to profit from the most abhorrent content they can find.
Practically the only way to even pretend this ban works will be to keep on banning. VPNs are an obvious target, if – or when – they prove to be a popular work around then hell, they’re a threat to the kids and we can already see how readily the British state runs to bans as a first instinct.
It’s also something that’s based solely on the moment we’re in. It’s not a ban that extends to AI usage where exactly the same dark patterns for enforcing user engagement as in social media are already emerging, that instead is going to be left as a feral breeding ground for all the harms nobody currently seems interested in engaging with. All with the added bonus of kids, suddenly cut off from the online communities they currently have, still being free to create ersatz interactions with the AI.
Perhaps most tellingly of all from this kneejerk, performative paternalism is the fixation on age. Certainly the harms to kids are there, social media knows who to target in the economy of attention, but it’s far older generations who have bought into online nonsense with the most fanatic commitment. It’s Boomers on Facebook that are endlessly believing (and sharing) GAI content for example, but it’s a particularly British disdain that means bans and scorn only ever go in one direction and that’s towards the young ones.
The best we can hope for is that this all becomes a point of destituent resistance with the workarounds making the ban largely irrelevant to the point where any legislation becomes purely decorative. Not much of a positive outcome given how it’ll do absolutely no good beyond, perhaps, teaching kids that resistance is always an option.
– Dylan
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