this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2026
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UK: Under-16s to be banned from social media, Starmer announces (www.bbc.co.uk)
submitted 2 days ago by Tarambor@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
307 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Under-16s will be banned from using social media, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced.

Starmer says social media is making children unhappy, making it easier for bullies to abuse children, and is "designed to be addictive". A ban would give children more time, security, and more freedom to grow up - as well as more opportunities, he adds.

"That is all any parent wants. They want to know that Britain will be better for their children, that they will get a fair chance," the PM says in a speech in Downing Street.

Starmer adds that the government is "not prepared to compromise" on the safety and happiness of children - and that includes in the regulation and enforcement of this ban. He says the government has listened to and learned from countries like Australia, where a similar ban has already been introduced.

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[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No it wouldnt. It'd be a .001% reduction in users.

If you want social media to become a ghost town, ban bots/AI

[–] pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Can they even do it? AI nowadays can reliably parse captchas, present themselves as adults, with little effort they'll even present documents and "real" photos

[–] abc@suppo.fi 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Full digital ID. Then the only for AI to get in is to steal a real human's identification.

Many civilized countries already have some system like this in place for critical stuff like banking, online healthcare, etc.

[–] MortUS@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They could but it's symbiotic. Social Media churns engagement using bots, which generates ad revenue.

Not to mention that large Social Media companies like Meta are almost certainly filtering out bot content to train LLMs on.

[–] pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

They obviously don't want to do it. But my point is that I think they actually can't.

I mean Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Cloudflare definitely can't filter real people from AI. Documents photos, real time videos, those are even easier for AI to fake than to the real people to make them.

That brings us to the good old sms to a physical sim card purchased in a real shop with human face and document check. And that also will be spoofed in like 6 months.

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I mean if people can figure out bot accounts and make lists of them just by looking at them, I'm pretty sure the companies that see 25000 accounts all connect from the same IP address can figure it out.

[–] pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

if people can figure out bot accounts

That's a big IF and most of the times they don't.

25000 accounts all connect from the same IP address

That's just not how it works.