Rayner tells Starmer: Ban social media for under-16s
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/05/24/rayner-tells-starmer-ban-social-media-under-16/
Posted by vriska1
Rayner tells Starmer: Ban social media for under-16s
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/05/24/rayner-tells-starmer-ban-social-media-under-16/
Posted by vriska1
46 Comments
> Although there is growing speculation that Sir Keir may opt for a full ban as a politically popular move, there are signs that Labour is divided over the proposal amid evidence that the Australian ban is not working.
> Five studies have suggested that at least 60 per cent of Australian children aged under 16 are not complying with the ban or have found ways around it.
> **Labour leadership rivals Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting are also said to have changed their minds and are believed to favour tougher regulation rather than a blanket ban.**
Another politician with below zero knowledge of how technology works. Yawn.
More attempts to stifle freedom of speech and to make life harder with no real benefits under the guise of protecting children, pathetic but expected.
because god forbid we teach kids or tell parents to be more responsible.
Let me guess, enforced by making all over 16s hand over their personal information to some sketchy third party verification mob?
Surely there’s absolutely no way a kid will be able to find a way around that.
Also ban it for over 65’s. They don’t understand algorithms and can’t differentiate between AI and real life.
Stop all British expenses and stop all MPs being paid when they are at the house of lords as they are paid £400 a day and a food allowance of £60 ,lee Anderson claimed over £200,000 in expenses and he claimed £20,000 for a holiday
Mass surveillance. Have the balls to call it what it is.
I definitely agree with the idea that social media is causing all kinds of problems, but I think the algorithms driving it are more harmful than the thing itself. And those algorithms have an impact on everyone using it, not just under 16s.
Okay, people will just download VPNs. Absolute moron. Why can’t we have a competant politican for once? Don’t get me wrong, despite me not agreeing with starmer on most things he’s still miles better then farage, but this is just stupid. Ignoring any actual issues in the country to ban children from using the internet for no reason.
“Rayner jumps on 5 year old bandwagon in an attempt to sound plausible”
As a parent of 2, my two cents is thus: it’s better to teach kids how to behave and use technology responsibly than it is to treat it like alcohol or swearing and apply blanket bans. Social media companies are desperate for you to stay hooked on their platforms. Therefore, the solution is always to engage with the kids and teach them about those dangers.
Additionally, where there’s light there’s darkness, kids will find ways around things and if that means descending into darker corners of the internet then I’m not sure what the benefit to this is.
Even ignoring the fact that it’s obviously a surveillance bid, it seems like supporters of this only really give a shit about the median teen. The football kid who has the lifestyle equivalent of vanilla icecream. There seems to be absolutely no consideration what so ever about the impact on kids at the fringes:
* Kids from abusive homes, considering isolating kids well known to be a go to tactic for abusers
* Kids from religious or political extremist homes who now have no access to information beyond what their parents allow
* Kids who might have mental conditions who now have no means to find communities that might understand them, particularly if they have parents who refuse to believe in that kind of stuff
* LGBT kids who will now just have to hope that the people around them, both parents and peers, will accept and support them (guess what, they won’t)
* Disabled kids who can’t necessarily socialise in person with ease
* Kids who just plain don’t fit into the mould of the median teen who are now entirely isolated, kids with different interests or preferences in life style basically have no outlet
All of these things were warned about by child protection charities but it seems labour only give a shit about the median football kid (and stopping naughty think I guess), and kids at the fringes can just go fuck themselves. I’ve noticed this whenever I’ve brought this up to people who support this crap, their response is always some variation of “tHe NeEdS oF tHe ManY OUt WeiGH tHe NEeDs oF ThE FEw” which goes to show they do not give one flying fuck about the well being of kids and teens. It seems in fact a lot just see it as a way of forcing kids into the norm in a kind of creepy social darwinist manner.
But some in the party will kick up a fuss and block him lol.
Blame the kids rather than force the tech companies to not be hell hole cesspits.
Rayner is a fucking joke. But so is Kier. And so is Farage. We’re all fucked.
I understand the motive but they’re always so hamfisted
Or hold social media company’s to account instead of going for the “think of the children” angle?
sooo continue with the thing he was planning? insightful
It’s a reasonable suggestion and the merits of this can be fairly debated either way, but the first thought that came to mind is how we’re embracing being illiberal democracies in the West. We’re drawing on banning as a primary option more and more. In the last few years, there’s been a general increase of legislative measures to ban, exclude or manage various areas of private life. From phone use, social media use, smoking, vaping, nicotine consumption (saw Sweden had a go at France today for banning nicotine pouches), internet anonymity on its way out being mooted, VPNs under increasing threat, porn restrictions, face-sitting and choking in sex, staggered ages of consent, incest porn as an illegal category to watch… All these things have seen recent attempts to ban, limit or force identification in some way. On case-by-case bases, you could make well-considered arguments for things. Is this really the way we want to go with regard to all aspects of life though? If we’re no longer liberal societies and are now embracing that, fine, but the Palantir-managed anodyne world, where you will have little freedom or autonomy to enjoy private pleasures or vices and yet will be publicly identified, constantly surveilled, and the intimacy of your Google search is harvested for data, in order to healthmax and looksmax and lifemax and safetymax and profitmax, is unsurprisingly one in which people will also be increasingly miserable. I’m looking at the overall picture here mind, perhaps this particular move is for the best.
>Five studies have suggested that at least 60 per cent of Australian children aged under 16 are not complying with the ban or have found ways around it.
No shit, it’s normally easy to get around things like that that are imposed by the technologically illiterate.
Why is she still involved? Didn’t she resign in disgrace?
lol if you ban under 16’s now you’ll wonder why in the next election they aren’t voting for you
Nosedive tell Starmer: Ban social media altogether
It’s getting really old that I am expected to hand my id to every company because parents can’t use parental controls.
It makes sense in theory, but how do you go about this? Like how and who determines what’s considered social media? Yea you have Facebook and X but what about sites like Youtube or Reddit where you can interact with others?
Where’s the line drawn?
Just ban algorithmic recommendations and the problem largely goes away while keeping the few positive bits of social media
Could you please do something more useful than finding more stuff to ban. We’re becoming a nanny state in overdrive.
Something I’ve really noticed about ourselves is that we love a good ban. Feverish about banning. If there’s something we can ban, restrict, we’re all over it.
Where the local elections not enough to show these people that no one wants them focusing on this nonsense? Start doing things people actually care about.
At this point they should ban if for everyone below 106
Is there any social group this government isn’t shitting on?
Trans people are treated like crap, disabled people risk hsving their benefits cut off, protesters are met with an iron fist and now this
15 years 364 days old: cannot be trusted to use social media
16 years 0 days old: trusted to make an informed vote on who should run the country
Im not comfertable with drunk politicians deciding whats best for children.
They want censorship by any and all means.
Like a freaking George orwell book.
Maybe someone should tell people to stop having kids if they don’t know how to parent them?
Why we should get loans in our names by scammers because of another leak of IDs, because someone doesn’t know how, or can’t be bothered to, to tech their kids how to be safe online.
The first thing you would teach your kids about being online, is to not upload their ID to a first dodgy website that asks you to do so 🤦♀️🤦♂️🤦
Why can’t we just bring back the old dumb Nokia phones and make the kids use those instead?
As someone who comes from being in a tech work background and has kids who will grow up to being in this world I have opinions. I will say my opinions are of my own experiences and are not in anyway trying to demonise or eulogise social media.
My current thinking is that the kids won’t have social media until they are old enough to understand and show me they can differentiate between content types and what that content aims to achieve. I don’t want to restrict access to the world but to gently teach them that all the love, teaching, compassion, empathy, knowledge we as parents give them doesn’t mean that everyone out there is the same and this is the reasons why.
iPads … for educational purposes, fine, I can lock them down quite easily. Do you want to play games, cool, let’s learn to code and understand how they work, I want them to be productive devices and just for consumption
Phones, you can have a dumb phone when you are older and a smartphone when you pay the bill for it. They don’t need a smart phone for school.
I chat to teachers and [read](https://send-network.co.uk/posts/screen-time) up on how screen time affects kids development and we aim to minimise that from their lives as I see a growing number of children struggling to function because their parents for whatever reason, give them a screen to calm them down.
Each device, iPads, smartphones can lead to poor social media controls because we as parents have failed ( through our own knowledge or just apathy ) to guide our children correctly.
With all the will and guidance in the world that I give my kids, I could still fail as well.
I think bans on social media are dramatic, I’d much rather have education in the school curriculum, tighter social media controls such as the parent owning the account till the kids are of age and more support for parents of the benefits and dangers of social media.
The issue is how you do that. Without giving social media firms our data.
I feel awful for teenagers who are gay and have lost one outlet for communication with their community.
This nanny bullshit needs to go away. We see right through it. They don’t care about the children – they want to harvest more data for their criminal friends at Palantir.
There needs to be a better age verification process before these things are introduced – nobody wants to send their ID / selfie / card details to a dodgy third party.
How?
(whatever you said won’t work)
..and this just an excuse to bring in more surveillance.
They way is obvious, block X, Meta and TT until they change the algorithms back away from brainwashing and the nasty stuff.
And block the whole of Russia while you’re at it..
Musk has just announced his desire to destroy UK democracy – what’s left of it..
And brainwashing RW propaganda has never been more rife on FB.
Before you do any legislation. Please for the love our tax money THINK about how you’re going to actually enforce it. If you can’t then move onto more pressing issues. There’s a lot on the list.
I’m more worried about the old on social media tbh.
Ban over 60s while you’re at it. Every old person I know has got far right brain rot from Facebook. They don’t understand people can lie and spread propaganda. They don’t realise so much is AI now, constantly getting scammed.
Got two kids under 16 ,,probably the only good idea they’ve had tbf
There are a lot of people pushing this as an excuse for surveillance, but don’t you already have to be 13 to legally use social media? Why does extending that to 16 imply greater surveillance?
Building the security state that reform will use to crush all opposition