The Labour government will announce measures to make the under-16s social media ban harsher after reports that children could get past face-checker systems and so on. Who could have predicted this?
Ministers are aware that children can use a VPN or in some cases draw beards on themselves for selfie-checker verification systems. They plan to force platforms to require driving licences or passports – so-called “hard checks” – to access their services. Making things more miserable for everyone…
Burnham’s government is now claiming that it will only ban those sites with ‘addictive’ features instead of a blanket approach, telling the Times: “This isn’t about banning social media platforms for young people outright, this is about banning sites that have addictive and damaging features. If they remove these features, the ban will be lifted.” Platforms and apps with ‘addictive features’ are also meant to turn them off for 16 and 17-year-olds as well as instituting a midnight-to-6 a.m. curfew. If you aren’t going to try to restrict or ban VPNs any measures will be able to be circumvented – and not even China has managed to stop people using VPNs…
