00:00Blanket ban, I'm not so sure.
00:01When I was 13, if someone said you're not allowed to go to social media anymore,
00:04I would have just told the app that I'm like 18.
00:07Bans attack the symptoms rather than the actual root cause.
00:09The UK government has begun consulting on a possible Australian-style ban on social media for under-16s,
00:16citing rising concerns about mental health, online abuse and harmful content.
00:21Technology Secretary Liz Kendall has said the consultation would move quickly,
00:26with conclusions due by this summer.
00:27So today I can tell the House, we will bring forward a swift three-month consultation
00:33on further measures to keep children safe online.
00:37This will include the option of banning social media for children under 16.
00:43The move follows reports that Grok, the AI tool on Elon Musk's platform X,
00:49has been used to generate non-consensual sexual images and videos of women and children.
00:54Some argue that parents are being placed in an impossible position when it comes to protecting their children
00:59from online harms. But what do young people think about the proposed ban?
01:04The Independent visited FlipGen's The Table, a youth-led discussion on online safety involving Ofcom,
01:11charities and social media companies, to hear young people's views.
01:14Young people aren't involved in these conversations and it's about them,
01:18and the people that are talking about this and are deciding about this aren't.
01:21I think a lot of adults don't understand because they grew up in a different generation
01:25that most children stay connected with their friends through their phones.
01:29Like, without my phone, I'll probably forget who half my friends are.
01:33If you want young people to comply, you have to listen to the actual issues that they're facing
01:37and legislate according to what they need.
01:40I've actually had leukaemia for three years, so I actually finished my treatment a few months ago.
01:45So I've just been, like, during the whole kind of process, I felt kind of incredibly isolated
01:50and just on my own, spending a lot of time at home and connecting with friends and people
01:55from the outside world through social media has helped me so much.
01:59I think I would have felt so alone and it would have been so much harder on me without social media.
02:03I live in a rural area and, like, nobody around me has, like, talked about OCD, really.
02:09So social media was the only way that I could kind of get an understanding of these things
02:14that I'm feeling aren't an issue of me.
02:16This is an actual thing, which kind of changed my life.
02:19Under-16s are really, really important.
02:21But what about when you turn 16?
02:23You're then just left in a minefield, like a digital space, rife with harm.
02:26Often on Instagram and TikTok and all these other social medias,
02:30you'll see a warning before you see the video.
02:32It'll say, may contain graphic content, may contain nudity.
02:35My message is, if the tech companies have this technology to detect it,
02:40surely they have the technology to remove it as well.
02:42I think the best way is to, like, find a mid-ground where you're, like, discussing with children
02:48what they think could be harmful content and making children aware of what is harmful content for them.
02:54The digital world is much, much younger than the real world.
02:56There is still time to make it safe by design rather than trying to, like, firefight.
03:01Children's safety groups, experts and bereaved families have released a joint statement
03:06urging the government to rethink the proposal, signed by organisations including the NSPCC,
03:12ChildNet and the Molly Rose Foundation.
03:15They argue the ban is a blunt response that fails to hold tech companies and governments to account,
03:21warning it could shift risks elsewhere online and create a dangerous cliff edge
03:25for 16-year-olds entering high-risk platforms.
03:28They also stress that some children, particularly LGBTQ+, and neurodiverse young people,
03:34use these platforms for connection, identity and support.
03:38Instead, they call for social media companies to enforce strict risk-based age limits
03:43and block features that pose risks to younger users.
03:46We understand completely parents, children's, families, massive worries about the online world.
03:52It's scary. Lots is happening.
03:53And we think a really complex problem needs more than a blanket, blunt solution.
03:58So that's why we're instead calling for a risk-based approach to the setting of minimum age limits.
04:04So that's really calling for us to look at the evidence on each platform,
04:07not just a handful of a few social media sites, as is the case in Australia,
04:12but look at online gaming as well, private messaging spaces,
04:15to make sure that harms can't migrate to new spaces and children are protected now and in the future.
04:20I mean, I went and visited a school recently and the kids just told me,
04:24in the Midlands, and the kids just told me they haven't had school for two years on a Friday.
04:28No teachers can't keep the lights.
04:30And this story hasn't even made the press.
04:32And what, I spoke to a girl for the piece in this,
04:34and what lots of them doing is substituting learning.
04:38Genuinely using like YouTube, TikTok, TED Talks, podcasts, all kinds of things.
04:43From my own personal point of view, I'm queer and grew up in a very rural area.
04:47So even from my own experience, being able to use social media
04:52to sort of discover my own self-identity was really important.
04:55What social media has kind of done, because of its kind of sprawling and multifaceted nature,
05:00is kind of upended the traditional hierarchies of popularity.
05:03And via sort of parasocial communities and online communities,
05:06young people have found two things.
05:08Number one, a sense of community and identity online.
05:10You know, a really good example, your example,
05:12a complete acceptance and celebration of queerness or all kinds of identities,
05:16which has obviously raised up and really promoted confidence.
05:20But the second thing is that's not just online.
05:23What I sort of found in that piece is people were finding these online communities
05:27and parlaying that into actual friendships and connections at schools.
05:31If you were to take that away,
05:32I think it's the more marginalised young people that would suffer most.
05:35And I think that's a real shame.
05:36By contrast, 61 backbench Labour MPs have backed a blanket ban for under-16s
05:42in a letter that has also won the support of actor Hugh Grant.
05:46They point at the correlation between screen time and depression rates among young people
05:51and claim 78% of Gen Z say they would try to delay their child using social media for as long as possible.
05:58The proposal has the backing of the House of Lords and will now be considered by MPs in the Commons.
06:03Whether it will be implemented to the same extent as in Australia remains unclear.
06:09Regardless, it is vital that young people are not excluded from the debate.
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