James Copley

[James Copley @jcop666]

@jordanhewlett99 Isn't there a lad who plays at Madrid who's a bit good in this position??

[thinkingcap @chrisheatherly]

I’m actually a child online safety expert and was one of the pioneers in this space with Club Penguin and so I feel uniquely positioned to critique this.

The groomer problem is real but it’s also vastly overstated. The far larger issue we saw at Penguin was suicidality or reports of sexual abuse in the home.

There is no solution for lazy/bad parenting. You can implement all the ID laws you want but if parents are going to just hand kids their phones unlocked, those kids will have access to all the same things the parents have unfettered.

What I found is that these draconian safety laws actually make it harder to be an honest operator of kids apps because on one hand it’s so much legal risk and so much user friction that it simply becomes uninvestible as a business.

Parents will just lie to let their kids use the unfettered internet. For example, I have a friend who works in mobile gaming who has two kids, one above and one below the age limit but separated by just 2 yrs, and the two wanted to play and chat together on Roblox - which is reasonable. To do this, he just verified that his younger kid is old enough for the chat feature when he’s not.

This happens all the time and will happen with these laws to. How far do we want to go with this? Scan the face of the user in real-time to make sure it’s not a kid using the device? We could do that but it feels like a massive unwanted intrusion of privacy.

That’s how you know this law isn’t about kids. COPPA and GDPR-K and so forth already make it illegal to allow chat and other grooming vectors to kids.

What’s really being done here is trying to eliminate online anonymity. And this is a far bigger issue that goes to core speech rights because if you cannot criticize the govt anonymously and if wrong speech is a crime then it becomes easy to identify all the detractors of the govt in power, and ban, fine or jail them for speech crimes.

Starmer has already been doing this and he wants to do it at a much bigger scale. Starmer won’t even acknowledge the problem of actual grooming gangs in Britain’s neighborhoods but he’s worried about online grooming?

No he’s not, and this hypocrisy gives away the game. What he wants is to kill online anonymity so he can enforce censorship of his unpopular policies. No politician should have this power.

[Alonso Gurmendi @Alonso_GD]

I’m not a tech person so maybe this is dumb but isnt it easier to create a “children’s phone” at point of sale so you get a phone with built-in restrictions rather than asking every single person in the country whether they are over 16 or not through hackable digital ID software?

[Samantha Carson 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧 @misscarsonn]

Other parents: “Thank God Keir Starmer has banned social media and YouTube for under-16s. Best thing he’s ever done.”

Me, fully awake:
“Don’t worry kids, I’ve got the VPN ready.”

My children belong to me. Not the state.

And that is non-negotiable.

[Jerry Barnett @JerryBarnett]

My kids were chatting the other day about a science influencer they both like. The older one follows on Tik Tok and the younger one on YouTube. I had never heard of this influencer - they discovered them themselves, independently. It was one of many moments I've had while watching my kids grow up that I've appreciated how valuable the digital world is to children.

The more I think about the social media ban, the more regressive it seems. Those of us with kids at school know that this generation is the best informed, most worldly generation in history. They know how to navigate misinformation, bullying, scams, threats, abuse and trolling better than many adults do. They understood AI the moment they laid eyes on it, and they use it daily.

Their social lives are largely spent online. They're more in touch with their friends than any previous generation, even if they're meeting less in the real world. For current teenagers, I think the loss of social media will be heartbreaking. It's cultural vandalism.

[James Copley @jcop666]

@Bbmorg If they are idiots..then they will

[James Copley @jcop666]

@NJSimmondsbooks Adult spaces are u for real. My daughter purely uses her insta to track and share her skateboarding progress. A perfectly responsible use of the platform. And thanks to herr starmer and idiots like you her "choice" will now be removed

[James Copley @jcop666]

@MarieTidball No it's not

[James Copley @jcop666]

@SamCKx @mid502 Digital id through the back door ....but oh protect the kids ffs

[James Copley @jcop666]

@writtenoff_mufc Because as a parent banning anything makes it more attractive to kids. There are technological solutions that parents can use to restrict access already (if used properly) it should be a parental choice not government overreach

[James Copley @jcop666]

@ultimatedwazzer @PolitlcsUK Still proposed social media curfews for 16 and 17yr olds.... Either way government overreach

[James Copley @jcop666]

@JamieHillsCT @BBCNews Spot on!!

[James Copley @jcop666]

@Keir_Starmer Maybe parents could just try "parenting" for once. An obsene government overreach

[James Copley @jcop666]

@come2whereiam I thought it was amazing brainless fun too. I have the power

[James Copley @jcop666]

@PeaksJimmy @ChesterfieldFC Beat you though

[James Copley @jcop666]

@SpireiteNews Enjoy league 2 next year

[James Copley @jcop666]

https://t.co/6dj3ACe2Er

[Scarlett’s Movie Musings @ScarletCinema]

“But, as you see, it's a beautiful day, the Strait of Hormuz is open and people are having a wonderful time!”

[Fiona Rose Diamond @CoviLeaks]

The Lords voted 261 to 150 in support of Lord Nash's amendment to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, with support ranging from "medical professionals to our police and national intelligence community, from our teachers to hundreds of thousands of parents."

There will be a 3 month consultation. Liz Kendall, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology stated "The consultation will include a range of other options too, such as whether there should be curfews overnight, breaks to stop excessive use or doomscrolling, how we ensure more rigorous enforcement of existing laws around age verification and action to address concerns about the use of VPNs to get around important protections."

And people will cheer it on believing it's all about 'safety for children' because they have no skin in the game... yet.