"So how are you going to stop them?"

The proposed "ban" on social media for those under sixteen was being discussed yesterday and that was the question being asked.

I was doing my last day for this year as a steward at our annual show - mentioned elsewhere in this blog. There were people coming in to pick up their exhibits and there was some chatter around me about the proposed ban. Most people seemed to think it would be a good idea and then, someone asked the question. It is the big question, "So how are you going to stop them?"

Yes, how do you stop under sixteens from using social media? You can try of course but how effective is "age verification"? 

I thought back to the time when I set up my "social media" account. I simply typed in the relevant information. Nobody checked. I could have lied. Presumably the government is relying on people to tell the truth about their date of birth. Quite how they plan to check I am not sure. Nobody else talking about this could work it out either - except in ways which would be highly intrusive. Even then it seems likely that any computer savvy child could bypass all this...and how do you get around the VPN issue? 

The government proposal seems to suggest that those who own things like Tik-Tok and Snapchat are going to be held responsible for ensuring that those under sixteen do not have accounts. There was general agreement yesterday that this was not the right approach. It was generally held that parents had to be responsible for this, not the service providers. This is like asking the person who grows the grapes to be responsible for the consumption of alcohol in those under sixteen. 

"It's just going to make kids want to use it even more," someone said and she may be right.

Perhaps what we need to do is look at providing substitutes for social media use among the young. I looked around at the needlework, the knitting, the crochet, the paper craft, the woodwork and more which was still awaiting collection. Perhaps we could start by involving more young people in that sort of thing?