30
votes
Britain and Canada join Australia in banning social media for children under 16
Link information
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- Title
- The Global Rush to Ban Kids From Social Media Has Begun. Will It Work?
- Authors
- Scott Roxborough,Etan Vlessing
- Published
- Jun 19 2026
- Word count
- 1499 words
Welcome to the Digital Surveillance Western Empire, you will do as you are told and not step out of line. Free/Anonymous online discussion is not permitted, please submit your ID to continue.
As Tildes is a Canadian run 'Social Media' site will Tildes comply and request ID from Canadian users? Refuse to comply and go rogue, or shut down in the face of censorship? I know I won't be complying under any circumstances.
It's like people don't care that within the past twenty years surveillance apparatuses have begun tracking literally everyone all the time.
They're too busy scrolling, brainwashing themselves into thinking that literally anything but working 8 hours per day and then shoveling engineered crap into their eyes, ears, and mouth until you pass out is lame, caring too much, and a waste of time.
They want you to read this and be angry, to vent and complain and then throw your hands up. They will do this until you are convinced you like the grinder and that you can't live without your comforts and luxuries. Keep compromising your values, keep feeding the beast, and stay "healthy", like the livestock we are supposed to be. Don't be offended or traumatized, stay indoors. Don't compromise, isolate, and find comfort in cold media. Go to Calm.com, be mindful for as long as it takes for you to get back on task. Medicate away your angst and your fear, medicate away your literal hunger, your dissatisfaction, medicate everything but your work ethic and your contempt.
Go ahead. Open tiktok. Open insta. You're bored, aren't you? Life is soooo boring. They can take that pain away too.
"He loved Big Brother."
I think any of these age-verification schemes around content on the internet should only be targeted toward monetized ventures. That way, you make it impossible to legally make money selling social media/porn to minors, without creating mechanisms that can be abused to control speech and expression since people can always put something out for free if it's important enough.
Britain announced it a few days ago, Canada is following close behind.
I'm sorry if it's a repetitive news story, but the Canada part was new information to me
Well at least the penalty has some teeth. Feel like that's rarely the case.
Ah, so VPNs are next, got it. They were already under attack, but "won't someone think of the children?!" tends to elicit more support.
Also, what counts as an "unregulated platform?" How is it determined which platforms are to be "regulated?" DAU? Just being specifically listed in legislation?
My life was much better and I was happier and healthier pre internet, and pre social media. Everybody I knew was outside doing cool things. I could sit there in silence for a few minutes without getting twitchy. Nowadays, most kids don't even know what life is like without a screen. The medium is the message. Kids' brains have been formed to require a constant dopamine drip.
Even if the government can legislate kids to put the screens away and do healthy kid things, can a 12 year old kid with a shitty melted brain that has only ever known cheap no-effort pleasure ever become a real person again? Some of the kids that I know are messed up. I ask a simple question and it's all "um well like you know like um.." and then back to their screen asap.
I think it's too late for most the current crop. Maybe internet protections can save the next crop from the systemic fungus.
Part of the issue is just that society as a whole has changed, not just because of screens. Kids are more physically isolated than ever. Some of it is just living in areas that don't have much to do outside, some of it is having no way to actually safely get anywhere without parents (even friends living within a mile can be impossible to visit without a parent driving due to busy roads), and some of it is just living in unsafe areas.
Even back in, what, 2014, my mom and I talked about giving my old Wii to a coworker because her friend didn't want her kids going outside because they lived in a bad neighborhood. She was looking for things they could do inside the house during summer because it was safe.
The screens and internet usage are a BIG issue, but it's just one of many troubling factors and changes within the last couple of decades.
I’m in my 40s and I believe in democracy, and I’ve never felt so disconnected from government decision-making. Feels like we’re just spectators watching news unfold through a screen. Headlines (like this one) show up in our feeds, and we react to them online which feels cathartic but does nada to change anything. We’ve traded effective civil unrest for ranting online, actual political action for a harmless digital facsimile.
I think that’s the broader phenomenon but it doesn’t explain everything. I try be an involved citizen. I vote — rarely for the winner. Feels futile. I go to protests — nothing changes. But you know who is winning these days? Look at the smirking captains of the ship, they’re all birds of a feather. Aligned in their goals of ignoring the will of the people, perpetuating mass delusions and conspiracy theories that deny reality as a vehicle for constantly enriching themselves. Constructing a world of surveillance, disenfranchisement, and passive entertainment, engineered to siphon wealth from the poor to the ultra-rich with staggering efficiency.
I can post about it until my fingers bleed but the architects of this new world are undeterred. Resistance is futile.
I think the internet has created the perfect environment for fascism (or whatever THIS is, actually) to thrive. The fearmongering and sowing of mistrust and division are both an accelerant and a distraction. Social media gives dissenters an illusion of influence that’s completely toothless. The infinitely scrolling videos lull us into complacency. And the surveillance and the technical mechanisms that actually drive the self-enrichment schemes are too complicated for most to articulate any meaningful objections to. Those of us who understand what’s happening are an insignificant buzzing mosquito to them.
We’re living through an utterly sociopathic takeover of society, an engineered cultural regression toward the cruel and decadent, and a project of wealth extraction/stratification on an unprecedented scale. Most people are oblivious to it. It’s not even possible for those who are paying attention to follow all the moving pieces. There’s too much to keep track of, too much news to ingest, too many zone-flooding lies, too much jargon and technical complexity, too much economic precarity for regular people, and too many comically evil schemers in power with no accountability. I think the textbooks are going to have a really damning name for this era in history, and everyone’s going to be scratching their heads wondering how people back then (us) ever let it get so bad.
I’m not even going to comment on the social media ban. What else is there to say? Obviously social media is a net negative for society, but this isn’t the solution. It’s yet another misguided, fingers-in-ears denial of how digital technology works, that ultimately fails to achieve its stated goals while causing us to lose even more ground in our losing battle against constant tracking and surveillance. That so many countries appear to be coordinated in this rollout is telling. I’m so tired.
Yeah, things are bad, so doing anything must be good, right? Wouldn't want to have to dehumanize any more kids.