Banning social apps for under-16s, as has happened in Australia, is one of the options being considered.
Kendall said a response to the consultation would be published in the summer.
Campaigners are broadly split on whether an outright ban on social apps for children is the best approach.
I feel sort of ambivalent about the whole thing myself. Yes, it is yet again surveillance state crap being pushed onto all of us under the THINK OF THE KIDS umbrella and keeping them off social media is rather difficult if the desire to go there is strong enough. So the kids might begin delve into the less corporate depths of the web such as here in their search for ways around the restrictions, which wouldnt be bad either i would say.
On the other hand, social media is a cancer on society and the mental wellbeing of (not just) young people. If this somehow led to the kids collectively returning to the real world, meeting and interacting like it used to be common, that would be fantastic. Could even inoculate them against the right wing propaganda machines at work online.
This isn’t going to bring back third spaces. This isn’t going to make “loitering” the sort of thing police come over to bother you over. This isn’t going to help children stuck in suburbs or ones stuck with parents who think everybody is out to rape them because of the yellow press.
They could make social media less of a hellscape - ban advertisements, hold them accountable for misinformation, set minimum standards for user control over feed algorithms, that sort of thing.
They could make existing in public as a child more viable - restrict cars, expand public transportation, add child friendly bike lanes and pedestrianstreets, subsidize third spaces for unaccompanied children, make the outdoors more pleasant to exist in by adding so many more (homeless-friendly) benches and hangout spots that the homeless can hang out in some spaces and kids in the others, etc.
But no, they just ban the place sympathy for Palestine came from by expanding the surveillance state.
Disclaimer: i am arguing from a European perspective. Living in the suburbs around here means 20 minutes into town by bike or public transport.
So they’ll be exposed to ill-thought out extreme reactionary leftist positions instead.
But only when the material conditions are right of course.