On the Social Media Ban for Under 16s

The British government is currently holding a consultation on banning social media for under-16s. I have several opinions about this.

First of all, I don’t take these consultations seriously. I think it’s just a procedural step to create the illusion of discussion before this goes into effect. I’m pretty sure it is going to go into effect.

The government’s motives likely have more to do with wanting to control the narrative, which they can’t really do effectively online. It’s the users and owners of social media platforms who currently shape the discourse, and obviously, no government is going to just let that be.

But for the sake of discussion, let’s think about what the actual effects on under-16-year-olds would be.

If I were under 16 in this situation, I would probably just migrate to smaller, more niche communities. In some ways, that might be a good effect—not in the sense of “keeping children safe,” but in the sense that these large social media companies have too much control over the kind of content people create online. Success online seems entirely dependent on what a platform promotes; if you go against the meta, you probably won’t get any attention or views. So, on the whole, I think it could be a good thing if people start looking at smaller websites.

There’s no denying, however, that many communities only exist online. Of course, everyone wants to ban the communities they oppose from influencing young people. But you have to think about the alternatives.

From my own experience, I didn’t have the internet—let alone social media—until I was 18. I don’t think my life was substantially better because of that lack.

Another potential outcome is that people might form more communities offline. But I think there’s a certain subsection of people—introverts and those with helicopter parents—who would be totally cut off from any community. They would be at the mercy of their parents and the state to shape all their views. I don’t see enough criticism of this, probably because people are afraid to criticise anything done under the guise of “protecting the children.”

I don’t think people are taking the broader implications seriously enough. Governments all over the world are already shutting down the internet during protests—it’s happened in Nepal, Iran, and Afghanistan. I’ve heard Russia is trying to create its own internet separate from the rest of the world. People shouldn’t be deceived into thinking this is just about protecting children.

I understand the concerns people have, but I don’t think it will stop here. People thought it would stop with age verification and the state mandated doxxing system brought in by the Online Safety Act. Obviously, governments are working together to limit freedom on the internet and in real life. It is not a coincidence that these laws are being brought into effect in multiple countries at the same time. Some have this delusional idea that getting rid of the internet will bring back vibrant real-life youth subcultures. The reality is, those things were only ever accessible to a small group of people to begin with.

You can’t really trust the government—it doesn’t matter which one it is. But I guess people are often more concerned with scoring points against their political opponents than with the long-term effects of such a ban.

There’s no way to predict the future. But I just hope that a social media ban might encourage under-16s to create their own websites and communities, making them less dependent on, and less easily manipulated by, the major platforms. If that happens, they would be less manipulated by both the government and social media companies.

Either that will happen, or the government will keep tightening the screws and things will just keep getting worse. They only need a pretext. If one person unalives themselves because of some group on the internet, that’s enough for them to treat all of us like potential criminals.

So on the one hand, I think it’s a good thing that under 16-year olds are banned from social media because it might encourage them to create their own websites, their own smaller communities, which can’t be manipulated as easily as social media, but on the other hand, I don’t think it will stop here. If a community ever grows strong enough to effect real change then it will start getting policed, the only temporary way out is to live under the radar.