It was never just going to be about keeping kids off social media

“We shouldn’t accept that this is the end,” Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said this week of the UK’s looming under-16 social media ban. “This is a staging post to what must be a very active interventionist state, policing and regulating the online space so that people are safe.” Next March, the initial rollout will begin to keep teens under 16 from using “high-risk” social media apps, and further algorithmic restrictions will later hit those under 18. 

After that, more restrictions will apparently follow. What new “policing and regulating” powers will officials seek? 

FIRE has warned for some time now that the rapidly advancing era of age-gating teens from the internet would bring with it a lot more baggage than just restrictions on kids. For one, it will force adults to participate in a vast identity verification scheme, threatening both privacy and anonymous speech. As I explained earlier, we’re moving toward a “papers, please” online landscape, where vital venues of public discussion might now only be open to those who are willing to trust tech companies and the third-party verification apps they use with information that can eliminate their anonymity online, and the governments responsible for mandating the collection of that information.

But there comes with it another threat, exactly the one Nandy now proudly advocates: The door was never going to just open to under-16 bans. Once legislators and regulatory authorities get their foot in that door, they’re going to see exactly how far they can force it open.

“If we were in a situation where we were saying our town centres are now so unsafe that we’ve decided that every child is going to have to stay in their bedrooms, people would rightly be up in arms,” Nandy said. “How have we got to a point where we’re saying these social media sites are so harmful and dangerous that we cannot conceive of any way of protecting our children except to remove them altogether? This ends now.”

It’s quite bizarre that Nandy is speaking as if the UK does not already enforce a very “active” policing of the internet, both via regulatory powers and criminal law. Thousands are arrested annually by police for their social media posts under broad laws targeting “grossly offensive” or “indecent” communications. 

Alongside this aggressive policing of speech, British regulators have recently amassed increasing power to target speech and platforms under the Online Safety Act, which “protects children and adults online.” Platforms that fail to take appropriate action under the Act face fines up to £18 million or 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater. And platforms are not only required to take down illegal content when flagged, but must “think about how they design their sites to reduce the likelihood of them being used” to host such illegal content. The kind of “illegal content” the regulator Ofcom polices doesn’t just include fraud or drug sales, but “hate” and “terrorism” too — two concepts which the UK interprets very, very broadly. 

Earlier this summer, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport also released plans to potentially require social media platforms to augment their algorithms to ensure government-approved sources like the BBC are “more likely to be at the top of people’s social media feeds when they search for news.” Nandy said of the proposal, “It is vital that we make sure that people have better access to trusted and accurate news and that our regulated public service media is seen and heard in the fierce battle against mis and disinformation.”

If this level of input and power over online speech, along with a new under-16 ban, is only the beginning of the UK’s “active interventionist state,” it’s hard to imagine where it will go next.

Alarmingly, it’s not just in the UK where officials are making clear that they aren’t content to employ existing speech laws against online expression or regulate only how children interact with social media. Just look at Turkey, where officials are threatening new requirements that people link a national ID number to their social media accounts so the government can easily identify speakers. Or Germany, where Chancellor Friedrich Merz is once again pushing for a “real name” rule for social media users and swatting down objections that it would pose a threat to free speech.

We are in a new era of regulating who can speak online, and how. And it was never just going to end with kids.