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UK Introduces Full Social Media Ban For Under 16s - Including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. (www.gov.uk)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
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cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1196216/uk-introduces-full-social-media-ban-for-under-16s-including-snapchat-tiktok-youtube-inst

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[–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

I'm thinking they might be using the definition from Digital Services Tax policies, which state that:

The social media definition focuses on two key aspects of user participation. An online service will meet the definition when both of the following conditions are met:

  • The main purpose, or one of the main purposes, of the service is to promote interaction between users (including interaction between users and user-generated content).
  • Making content generated by users available to other users is a significant feature of the service.

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/digital-services-tax/dst14200

If that's the case, then Rumble et al would be banned too. It might just be, that the press release just mentions the most popular ones.

That they don't intend to target messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Signal (and potentially Telegram) is a bit of a greyzone. Telegram is more social network than messaging app these days, where channels are a huge part of the platform. In fact, it's such an important part, that WhatsApp copied the Channel feature to their platform.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    Rumble would be banned too

    Yeah, but my point is really that some services, probably including Rumble, won't care about regulatory action. So the next action, if this continues, would presumably be the British government doing what Russia did, which is mandating that British ISPs set up to block access to government-specified hosts, because legal routes currently being attempted on them won't work.

    Then the VPNs and similar come out, and presumably if it keeps going, again, the UK does what Russia did, which is disallow commercial VPNs from operating in the UK without blocking traffic to said hosts internal to the VPN.

    Then the next step is things like VPNs that rely on data harvesting instead of commercial sales, so can't be pressured by payment processors, and operate in jurisdictions that don't care about legal action, Tor, DIY proxies (e.g. get cheap VPS in random place, run SOCKS proxy/VPN), and so on. At some point, the British government stops following up, and someone starts making one-click solutions juuust beyond what enforcement goes after.

    Telegram is more social network tham messaging app these days

    Ah, gotcha, thanks

    I don't use it.

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