News Round-Up: UK to Ban Social Media for Under-16s, Sweden to Deport Immigrants for Bad Behavior, and England Fans Face FIFA Ban Over Anti-Keir Starmer Chants
Twice a week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye – or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.
Over the past few days, the following topics attracted our attention:
UK to Ban Social Media for Under-16s
Sweden to Deport Immigrants for Bad Behavior
England Fans Face FIFA Ban Over Anti-Keir Starmer Chants
UK to Ban Social Media for Under-16s
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Monday that the country plans to ban several social media platforms, including X, Facebook, and TikTok, for users under the age of 16.
“Every parent can see it with their own eyes. Social media is making children unhappy,” Starmer said. “I’ve heard first hand from families crying out for change and we will do right by them.”
The UK plans to follow the same model as Australia, which became the first country last year to ban social media for children under 16. Platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to exclude under-16s could face massive fines.
Although it has become apparent in Australia that young people are circumventing the ban and continuing to use social media, Starmer believes the UK will be able to enforce it effectively. According to Starmer, the ban is a “big moment for our country”, and he confirmed that the UK plans to go further than Australia’s measures. The ban will apply to major platforms, including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X, but not to YouTube Kids or messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal. Some smaller platforms, such as Bluesky – X’s smaller competitor – have also been excluded for now.
Mike Benz, executive director of the Foundation for Freedom Online – a free-speech watchdog dedicated to a free and open internet – says the decision not to ban Bluesky stems from the European Union’s plan to target X while promoting Bluesky as an alternative. According to Benz, this is because US platforms do not want to fully comply with the EU’s online censorship demands, and the EU is planning to replace them with social media platforms it can better control.
At the same time, more and more countries, including those in Europe, are discussing bans on social media for children and young people. In the EU, the European Commission is spearheading the effort and has also proposed an age-verification app modeled after the COVID-19 vaccine passport. Europe’s desire to impose such a ban is no different from that of countries such as Russia or Turkey, where similar restrictions are also being planned.
At the same time, researchers in the fields of security and privacy have warned that age verification may fail to solve any real problems and could instead lead to increased censorship and the silencing of “inappropriate” individuals. The researchers emphasized that the impact of widespread age verification on security, privacy, freedom, and personal autonomy remains unknown.
Andy Yen, CEO of the Swiss VPN company Proton, acknowledges that children do face real dangers online and that parents’ concerns are justified and sincere. But he argues that the age verification solutions currently being hastily proposed everywhere are unacceptable and overly broad, as they spell the death of anonymity on the internet. At the same time, the more data is collected, the more it will inevitably be leaked – and the more tempting such vast data repositories will become for criminals.
In other words, there is no actual ban on social media for young people. Rather, it consists of mandatory digital identity checks for everyone, driven by authorities’ desire for greater surveillance and online censorship. Broadly speaking, this policy requires large technology companies to verify the identity of all users. It carries a significant risk of data leaks and will almost certainly eliminate online anonymity – which has until now allowed many people to speak freely about complex or controversial topics without risking their jobs or damaging personal relationships.
Sweden to Deport Immigrants for Bad Behavior
Sweden’s parliament passed a law on Monday allowing authorities to revoke immigrants’ residency permits based on bad behaviour, such as having unpaid debts, doing undeclared work or links to extremist organisations, Reuters reports.
The law, which covers pending permits but also retroactively already granted permits, is part of a wider tightening of immigration rules by the Swedish government and its support party, the Sweden Democrats, ahead of a parliamentary election in September.
The government, which won the 2022 election on a promise to reduce immigration and crack down on crime, has said that people who misbehave or commit crimes are not welcome.
Sweden has had a problem with violent crime for a long time, particularly related to criminal gangs and organized crime. As we have reported, such gang violence and organized crime in Sweden are directly linked to large-scale immigration. We have further discussed the problems of uncontrolled immigration in Sweden in this analysis.
England Fans Face FIFA Ban Over Anti-Keir Starmer Chants
England fans face the prospect of being ejected from FIFA World Cup stadiums in the US if they make anti-Keir Starmer chants throughout the tournament, The Daily Mail reports.
There is a strong feeling of discontent with the Prime Minister among large numbers of England’s hardcore support. The chant has been heard at numerous recent matches and appears to have made its way across the Atlantic for the World Cup.
Large sections of travelling supporters have been heard singing ‘Keir Starmer’s a w****r’ during England’s second pre-tournament friendly in Orlando - and the chant was already being sung in bars and pubs in and around Dallas ahead of the Croatia match tonight.
England football fans have also been warned that they cannot bring flags honouring our war dead into World Cup stadiums - because they feature a silhouette of a soldier holding a rifle.
FIFA rules aimed at making matches apolitical events prohibit banners, flags apparel or clothing deemed to be offensive, discriminatory or political. Its stadium code of conduct also warns fans not to ‘use offensive language or gestures’.
The government makes people unhappy. Hopefully Starmer will ban the government.