Kemi Badenoch doesn’t really need to speak in public more than once a month and she’ll do ok. In that respect, keeping her head down is proving very effective.

Sniping from the sidelines and criticising everyone clearly has merit. 🙃

7 minutes ago, Ani said:

Not you personally as not sure if this is your point, but people who oppose the ban rather than explain why the ban is wrong seem to focus on the implementation.

Social media is a horrible pit of hate and bullying. Keeping kids away from that is a good thing. The Social Media companies with their ££bns of profit have simply ignored chances to tidy up their act, they have refused to do so. The Govt is doing the right thing.

Let’s see which politicans oppose the ban and their reasons for doing so.

I oppose the complete blanket ban on everything.

Youtube is great for kids. Nothing wrong with WhatsApp or a safe version of Snap where they can all message eachother either.

All the other stuff is fine.

22 minutes ago, gonzo said:

I oppose the complete blanket ban on everything.

Youtube is great for kids. Nothing wrong with WhatsApp or a safe version of Snap where they can all message eachother either.

All the other stuff is fine.

Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X are among the platforms affected - but not WhatsApp or Signal

I have no idea what Signal is ☹️

41 minutes ago, gonzo said:

I oppose the complete blanket ban on everything.

Youtube is great for kids. Nothing wrong with WhatsApp or a safe version of Snap where they can all message eachother either.

All the other stuff is fine.

One of my lads mates has 100k followers, he does daft videos like kids do but he’s making a few quid from it now. It’s these kids I feel sorry for, the ones who have used it in a good way.

Not Bluesky either

I'm not sure this is really consistent with voting at 16

17 minutes ago, royal white said:

One of my lads mates has 100k followers, he does daft videos like kids do but he’s making a few quid from it now. It’s these kids I feel sorry for, the ones who have used it in a good way.

My feelings as well

My grandson (10) hoovers up educational stuff on YouTube. He could tell you everything about The Titanic for example. Give him a random subject and he’ll devour content on it

Granddaughter (7) watches endless arts and crafts videos and follows them to make stuff

That said I’m aware that there’s content that they could access that they shouldn’t be able to and that needs addressing

2 minutes ago, MancWanderer said:

My feelings as well

My grandson (10) hoovers up educational stuff on YouTube. He could tell you everything about The Titanic for example. Give him a random subject and he’ll devour content on it

Granddaughter (7) watches endless arts and crafts videos and follows them to make stuff

That said I’m aware that there’s content that they could access that they shouldn’t be able to and that needs addressing

YouTube Kids will still be available, for what it's worth

1 hour ago, gonzo said:

I oppose the complete blanket ban on everything.

Youtube is great for kids. Nothing wrong with WhatsApp or a safe version of Snap where they can all message eachother either.

All the other stuff is fine.

YouTube is the strange for me. They do seem to make some effort to control content.

Yeah and you can't interact with folk bar reading comments and stuff.

My lad had a great account making edits for football and stop motion videos etc.

My youngest watches space stuff and all kinds of educational videos. We share loads of stuff together.

On his YouTube kids he just gets kids videos with cartoons and shit.

I use YouTube all the time have never come across anything dodgy. It's lightyears away from the cesspit of tiktok and twitter.

1 hour ago, Sweep said:

100% - they've a lot to answer to, but then the likes of Musk hide behind the "freedom of speech" and "censorship" argument. Then again, he's mates with that turbo-nonce trump, so he's probably quite happy for blokes to send dick pics to 5 year olds.

Edited 16 hours ago16 hr by Dimron

1 hour ago, Ani said:

Not you personally as not sure if this is your point, but people who oppose the ban rather than explain why the ban is wrong seem to focus on the implementation.

Social media is a horrible pit of hate and bullying. Keeping kids away from that is a good thing. The Social Media companies with their ££bns of profit have simply ignored chances to tidy up their act, they have refused to do so. The Govt is doing the right thing.

Let’s see which politicans oppose the ban and their reasons for doing so.

I agree social media fucks kids (and adults) brains up but there is a full 6 months for the exponents to figure out ways around... anything to do with cyberspace moves so much quicker than government legislation. But as you say, at least something concrete is now proposed... pity it took a threat of losing your job for the PM to pull his finger out

1 hour ago, Lt. Aldo Raine said:

I'm not sure this is really consistent with voting at 16

Do pre 16 year olds in general have much of an interest in politics?

I wouldn't have though so - but I could be wrong.

But if they can vote, then I have no doubt whatsoever that all the political parties would be desperately trying to reach out to them, to influence them to vote their way.

What better way of doing so for 16 and 17 year olds than making content on the internet, that goes viral for the newly eligible voting youngsters to like and share?

Tbh I do think voting at 16 is a little too early, in that most at that age haven't experienced life - such as employment (or apprenticeship), no higher education learning (even college, education, learning or part way through for 17 year olds), learned to become even partially independent from their parents (washing, feeding, taxi services, etc), even experiencing different thoughts and views (away from their parental and their peer group 'norms') such as at university or in a work environment, etc.

Just my line of thinking.

If Starmer has done it then we can assume it’s going to be shit.

The same people saying it’s draconian and an example of a nanny state presumably will have no issue in lifting age restrictions on fags and booze?

4 minutes ago, Spider said:

If Starmer has done it then we can assume it’s going to be shit.

The same people saying it’s draconian and an example of a nanny state presumably will have no issue in lifting age restrictions on fags and booze?

No matter who is in charge, this was always going to happen

As said before, anybody who is actually against it, is clearly a peado sympathiser - so expect Musk, Trump, Robinson and Farage to come out and complain about it within the next 24/48 hours

It's not really working in Australia and it won't work here.

Especially for the current crop of youngsters.

BBC News

Russia was behind arson attacks targeting PM, BBC reveals

Evidence shows Russians directing the plot and stoking tensions with fake far-right and Muslim groups.

More bias reporting from the BBC I assume ?

Farage and Tommy are so up the Russians they have no idea how stupid they sound claiming to be Patriots whilst a foreign Government tries to destabilise the country and beyond.

11 minutes ago, gonzo said:

It's not really working in Australia and it won't work here.

Especially for the current crop of youngsters.

The current lot will probably just get a VPN and get by if they want

11 or 12 year olds who haven't used it will have to wait as they won't know about it, maybe

Bit like the cig ban

24 minutes ago, gonzo said:

It's not really working in Australia and it won't work here.

Especially for the current crop of youngsters.

I think they know it won't work massively well, but they have to be seen to be doing something, as "big tech" don't give a fuck what kids do or don't see on line.

Easier said than done, but it's really down to parents to try and police their kids screen time -my mate has 2, and they only have 1 hour screen time per day (much to their distress), I think he's got some sort of setting where their tablets automatically lock, and only he can override it, via some app he has on his phone

12 minutes ago, DirtySanchez said:

The current lot will probably just get a VPN and get by if they want

11 or 12 year olds who haven't used it will have to wait as they won't know about it, maybe

Bit like the cig ban

I'd have thought it's more for the younger kids, as you say, those in the 7-12 age bracket, beyond those ages, they'll soon find workarounds.

47 minutes ago, Ani said:

BBC News

Russia was behind arson attacks targeting PM, BBC reveals

Evidence shows Russians directing the plot and stoking tensions with fake far-right and Muslim groups.

More bias reporting from the BBC I assume ?

Farage and Tommy are so up the Russians they have no idea how stupid they sound claiming to be Patriots whilst a foreign Government tries to destabilise the country and beyond.

Almost as stupid as anyone who still follows or votes for them after reading this.

52 minutes ago, Sweep said:

I think they know it won't work massively well, but they have to be seen to be doing something, as "big tech" don't give a fuck what kids do or don't see on line.

Easier said than done, but it's really down to parents to try and police their kids screen time -my mate has 2, and they only have 1 hour screen time per day (much to their distress), I think he's got some sort of setting where their tablets automatically lock, and only he can override it, via some app he has on his phone

Exactly that. It's down to parents to get the balance right.

Same when we were kids, some would never leave their bedrooms playing Mortal Kombat and before that kids watching telly all day.

For the horse has bolted. Social media is absolutely ingrained in our world now and for most kids, with the right balance it does no harm. I see no trouble in my lad chatting to his mates on Snapchat while he plays fifa on a freezing cold hight in the middle of winter.

I'd rather him be doing that than roaming the streets.

Tiktok, Twitter and FB etc are a different kettle of fish obviously. No kid should be on them.

Government planning to fine companies who don't support it, they'll pull access for UK based IP addresses and MAC addresses.

VPNs can be blocked quite easily and tracked.

The big one will be the content tracking. If someone messages using kid speak or accessing content it deems as teen content, face verification. They could go further and only give five minutes until they lock it for the day..

People will be against it, but atm 2/3 kids have witnessed someone trying to take conversation to a direct message, 54% feel grooming is be expected from being online. These come from a survey where 1 in 4 kids who were victims of sextortion were under 13 when it happened.

It's not safe.

18 minutes ago, only1swanny said:

Government planning to fine companies who don't support it, they'll pull access for UK based IP addresses and MAC addresses.

VPNs can be blocked quite easily and tracked.

The big one will be the content tracking. If someone messages using kid speak or accessing content it deems as teen content, face verification. They could go further and only give five minutes until they lock it for the day..

People will be against it, but atm 2/3 kids have witnessed someone trying to take conversation to a direct message, 54% feel grooming is be expected from being online. These come from a survey where 1 in 4 kids who were victims of sextortion were under 13 when it happened.

It's not safe.

I'll set up YouTube accounts for my kids on their device's. They can't stop that.

2 hours ago, gonzo said:

I'll set up YouTube accounts for my kids on their device's. They can't stop that.

Possibly not, but if they do set up Face verification, they'll have to get you to sign back in, means you have some control over content at least and can see if they have people trying to get them to message privately, that's some of the battle in itself.

Can't account for parents that are not willing to follow rules and there's only so much the Government can do to try and keep kids safe.

Quite a few children's charities seem to bd opposed to it