Children should be forced to PROVE their age with documentation before they access social media, EE boss urges

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14066683/Children-forced-PROVE-age-documentation-access-social-media-EE-boss-urges.html

by vriska1

16 comments

  2. Would be unenforceable, because fining the companies is pointless and they’re not going to fine parents. And would also make it worse when 18 year olds did get access to social media.

  3. It’s all too late for this kind of talk. 10 years ago they should have implemented this. Why are they only now realizing how damaging social media is?

  4. Won’t somebody think of the children! An absolutely unmanageable proposition and I would question the complete lack of technical knowledge required to make such a suggestion. Either ban it altogether (heavily in favour as it’s imo a net negative to society) or revert from engagement farming algorithms to personally curated timelines (I.e., a basic feed or content you have actually chosen to follow). Neither of these things will happen though as there’s both too much money in the system and it’s too useful a tool for psyops.

  5. While I agree social media can be harmful.
    Ultimately, it comes down to parenting, not the state.
    When the state replaces the responsibility of the parent, you welcome authoritarianism.

  6. And yes, and to do that this would mean adults would also have to prove their age. And then suddenly all these companies have a copy of your ID/birth certificate/bank card etc to prove your identity.

    Call me cynical but say every porn site required identifying information to access, a hacker with half a brain would realise that’s a golden ticket to make money off of blackmailing porn users for cash.

    That aside the responsibility of policing your children’s access to online media lies with the parents, not individual websites or apps. Parenting apps are wildly available and easy to use even for those not particularly tech literate-and in this day and age *plenty* of parents and would be parents are tech literate by virtue of their age and growing up with tech.

  7. 1- Children should not be able to access social media until 16

    2- Foreign owned social media should either not be allowed in the UK or have strict moderation on penalty of heavy fines

    3- Britain needs to completely geoblock countries we are not on good terms with.

  8. Somebody has clearly never seen the underage kids in bars using fake ID.

  9. The effect would be to make everyone prove their age, which under the current system would mean handing over personally identifying information.

    It would be far simpler to just get rid of social media entirely. It clearly does more harm than good.

  10. What documentation? By the time you’re old enough to get universally accepted proof of age, you no longer need it

  11. Wait until he hears how much money he’d lose when kids stop needing unlimited data because they can’t use tiktok. He’ll suddenly do a 180.

    On the other hand, he could just be saying this for good publicity. “At EE, we care about your children’s wellbeing” type of thing.

  12. I can see them doing something stupid like linking your social media account with ID or public record and given how many data leaks private companies go through you can bet your passport, NI number, or whatever they use will be stolen and you’d be more fucked then when your email or phone number is stolen and you get spam mail

  13. We’re fucked to be honest. There is no way to police this. In an ideal world, parents would do their jobs and raise their kids properly with the necessary critical thinking skills but too many of them are failing to even potty-train their kids.

    Where do we go from here?

  14. So many people here acting like the only options are banning social media entirely or having people send personally identifiable information to every website they use.

    How about this: make is so children are only allowed to own personal computers that are designed specifically for children (and are recognisable as such; fisher price colours or something). These phones/laptops etc would include in any HTTP header a “this is a child’s device” notification so that the services they interact with can respond appropriately (not serving them adult content, refusing access at all, keeping track of how many non-child accounts are interacting with a suspicious number of child accounts, etc. ISPs could operate a whitelist system so they only connect them to websites that have been preapproved, so prevent people from owning their own websites designed to lure in only children).

    Meanwhile adults can have unrestricted access to the internet without having to give personal information or worry about censorship because “think of the children”

    If a child is caught with a non-child’s device unsupervised then fine the parent/guardian.

  15. Couldn’t you just do this on the mobile network itself like adult content?

  16. What a wonderful idea that definitely won’t be abused to breach everyone’s privacy!

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