the initiative would make it impossible for people to anonymously criticize the government online
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Keir Starmer announced this week that Britain will ban children under 16 from social media. By next spring, kids will be barred from platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook and X. Any platform that fails to keep them out could face multimillion-pound fines. The government is also weighing an overnight social media curfew for under-18s, because the state apparently now has authority over what time kids go to bed. The measures go before Parliament before Christmas, and given Labour’s majority and the cross-party appetite for a ban, it’s likely to pass with little trouble.
The UK has proudly reported 90 percent support for the ban, the result of a masterfully designed survey of 116,000 self-selected participants who were never actually given the option to oppose it:
Opponents of the ban, including Elon Musk and a wave of X posters, have called it backward and hypocritical. They point to the absurdity of expelling millions of teens from some of the largest public squares while letting 17-year-olds legally drive, work, enlist, donate blood and have a child. But God forbid they open TikTok after curfew. Proponents like Jon Haidt, a self-proclaimed “technoskeptic” who wrote The Anxious Generation, argue that access to social media is associated with major mental health and safety concerns for children, and much like tobacco companies, social media platforms should not be allowed to “recruit and retain child users.”
Lost in the discourse, however, is the question of how Britain intends to implement the policy. To keep every 15-year-old off Instagram, the state argues it has to know who is 15. And how do you know who is 15? You don’t… unless you screen everyone, argues Keir Jung Un. Social media users of all ages will thus be pushed into a state-mandated age-verification regime requiring face scans, digital IDs, passport information or credit-card details, effectively outlawing anonymous posting, and driving another nail into the coffin of British free speech.
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None of it is about the kids. It never is about the kids. It's not about 'whatever they tell you its about'. It's a lie, told to get you to do something, or acquiesce to something you normally would punch them in the throat for. But they lie and couch it in something that tugs at your heartstrings like "The Children" or "Veterans", or kittens, it doesn't matter. Whatever elicits an emotional reaction from you so you stop using your brain that is saying "hey wait a minute!"