Quick Take…UK to Announce Social Media Curfew

Just hours ago, it was reported that UK’s Labour government plans to announce a new social media curfew, adding yet another wrinkle to the country’s increasingly labyrinthine and totally meaningless rules for social media.

We already have the outright ban for under 16s, and the auto-enabled device-side nudity detection, and now they’re adding a midnight social media curfew for 16 and 17-year-olds.

Will it work?

Well, not to to keep teenagers off social media after midnight, they will get around it easily. That’s what VPNs are for (for now, anyway).

Will it work to sucker a large number of people into proving they’re over 17 by scanning their faces or IDs? Absolutely. Many people will do it without even thinking about it.

That’s all any of these rules are about. Getting you to verify your age and, almost more importantly, getting you used to being asked to verify your age. That’s why every measure has the same enforcement.

Nudity filter? Please verify your age.
Social media ban? Please verify your age.
Midnight internet curfew? Please verify your age.

It’s fifty different questions with the same answer, fifty roads to the same place. Each variation intended to sweep up some stragglers who – intentionally or otherwise – managed to avoid the last one.

Why this one right now?

Well, we’re in the dying embers of the legendary era that historians will doubtless label The Starmer Era (he wishes), and Sir Keir is busily passing all the rules that will cement his legacy as “the guy that was Prime Minister that one time and did the same things every other leader in every other country was already doing”.

“If you seek his monument, look around you, it looks just like all the others.”

Of course, this has nothing to do with Starmer’s legacy, and everything to do with giving the new guy as long a honeymoon period as possible.

You see, the out-going guy forcing through unpopular rules at the fag-end of his reign is better PR than the shiny new hopeful guy doing it at the beginning of his own.

The less ineffective, controlling and hated legislation Burnham has to pass in his first few months in office, the the more you extend the time before the majority of people realise he’s just like all the others and get sick of him.

There’s a law of diminishing returns on that, naturally, and it works for less and less time the more often they do it. That’s why we’ve had seven PMs in ten years, and why Burnham will be lucky to last 18 months.

Thanks for reading...

You can help us keep doing what we do. Every little helps and is hugely appreciated.

For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.