Championing digital rights, privacy and liberty within the Labour movement. 🌹👁️ ✉️ [email protected]
Joined January 2026
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Our response to the Prime Minister's announcement ⤵️
We are banning social media access for under 16s.
These days kids must find their feet in a world where technology intrudes into every area of their life.
I just can’t let that go on anymore. So we’re giving children their childhoods back.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
The UK Government's 'careful review' of the research found a small correlation between children's use of social media and wellbeing, but no evidence of a causal effect:
gov.uk/government/pub…
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696e0b46…
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
👁️People WRONGLY thrown out of @sainsburys & other shops using this tech shared powerful testimonies during our Victims Summit in Parliament.
One victim's husband was left "shaking from head to toe".
Read coverage of the summit⤵️
techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privac…
RT @BigBrotherWatch: 🆔Passport ID checks for social media will make your data a honeypot for hackers.
"There is no way to give your ID inf…
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
Today, Ofcom said age verification for social media could support a ban on under-16s. It will mean showing your passport, face, bank details or digital ID before being able to post on Instagram.
Yet Ofcom and the government refuse to admit one big problem: there's no evidence Australia's equivalent ban is working.
Australia's ban has dented account numbers but barely touched usage, and there is no sign of better mental health or safer children, if anything the opposite:
- The eSafety Commissioner's own evaluation undertaken by Stanford found that account ownership fell from 52% to 42%, yet use of banned platforms only fell from 86% to 82%.
- The same study concluded there had been "little to no change" in children's wellbeing, offline activities or problematic use.
- Parents who did not know their child had used social media rose from 23% to 33%, raising serious safeguarding issues.
- A seperate BMJ study found that more than 85% of under-16s were still using banned platforms.
- An NBER working paper estimates that just 6% of 14–15-year-olds were complying by June.
- Complaints about cyberbullying and image-based abuse show no notable change since the ban was implemented.
Ofcom has claimed that Australia only required "reasonable steps", while Britain will demand "highly effective age assurance". But that is untested hope, not evidence. Ofcom also admits that no method is robust against circumvention, VPNs remain legal, and already a quarter of children have used a VPN in the past six months.
This is a dangerous game, and the consequences fall on the rest of us. Ofcom has admitted that 16- and 17-year-olds will, in effect, need photo ID to get online, even though many don't have it, while many adults will have to scan their faces or upload documents to access social media.
The UK's ban is set to start in March, well before Australia's 12 month results or statutory review. We are supposedly learning the lessons from a policy implemented elsewhere, while practically learning nothing.
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
🚨 NEW: The age-check methods for Brits to access social media from March have been announced
1. Photo ID matching (passport against a live photo)
2. Banking checks
3. Digital ID services
4. Facial age estimation (additional check if needed)
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
On top of this, those who lack any valid form of ID - or rightly do not want to hand over their information to tech companies - will be shut out of the online world entirely.
This is a catastrophic policy that won't work.
We warned that a social media ban would force digital ID and biometric scans just to go online. Now Ofcom has confirmed it.
To prove you're over 16, Ofcom recommends methods like banking checks and facial age estimation.
All of this invasive infrastructure - and they STILL admit "the risk of circumvention cannot be entirely eliminated, and some children will succeed in bypassing age checks".
The death of online anonymity will come at the expense of a policy that doesn't even work.
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
🚨BREAKING: All Britons may need ID to use social media, the UK's online safety regulator today announces
“This plan for a government ‘social media ban’ is a national ID system by the back door.
Both the government and Ofcom have admitted that children will get around the ban, which means the real effect will be normalising adults and children alike to hand over their passports just to get online.
Hundreds of thousands of people without ID, who tend to be poorer people, and many more who don’t want to risk handing their passports over to foreign tech companies will be locked out of huge parts of the internet.
The plan will kill anonymity online, whilst the UK’s culture of speech policing is reaching a crisis point. The policy is painfully misguided, an Orwellian assault on free speech and privacy, and will make children no safer at all.
The false illusion that children aren’t on social media will cause the companies to abandon all their child safety measures. The Government could be promoting meaningful safety measures and supporting parental controls that genuinely protect children - instead, they’re demanding government ID from the whole population just for uncensored internet access. It is authoritarian madness.”
- Silkie Carlo | @silkiecarlo
Read ⤵️
telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/10…
Offloading enforcement to the tech companies themselves simply allows them to harvest data from all of us, while doing nothing to fix their predatory business models that facilitate genuine harms.
The government is handing Big Tech our personal information on a silver platter.
We warned that a social media ban would force digital ID and biometric scans just to go online. Now Ofcom has confirmed it.
To prove you're over 16, Ofcom recommends methods like banking checks and facial age estimation.
All of this invasive infrastructure - and they STILL admit "the risk of circumvention cannot be entirely eliminated, and some children will succeed in bypassing age checks".
The death of online anonymity will come at the expense of a policy that doesn't even work.
"The doomscrolling economy is not one we need to keep participating in."
From adopting "dumbphones" to deleting apps, young people are rejecting the predatory algorithms built to profit off their attention.
They don't need paternalistic social media bans that cut them off from news, peer support, and digital civic life - they just need politicians that respect their agency.
Read more ⤵️
theguardian.com/technology/2…
The business model of Big Tech relies on mass data extraction. Their AI models can then be deployed to predict voter behaviour, micro-target political messaging, and manipulate public debate at an unprecedented scale.
At the same time, UK government departments are quietly embedding foreign-owned AI models across Whitehall without adequate transparency or democratic oversight.
Democracy belongs to citizens, not algorithms.
Anthropic’s Claude AI bypassed a paywall to access voting data in the US state of Georgia, the company confirmed.
The breach, made without human authorisation, raises fresh questions about the security of AI systems ahead of midterm elections.
🔗 telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2026…
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
New - AI in the Shadows: How the UK Home Office Is Policing Borders Without Scrutiny
computerweekly.com/news/3666… via @computerweekly
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
A government watchdog is considering a probe into the Home Office’s use of ChatGPT technology to process asylum claims amid concerns over the tools’ accuracy and secrecy surrounding their use. buff.ly/NP26VNo
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
When Meta’s “pervert glasses” let creeps film you in secret, it’s women who pay the price.
Add your name and tell Zuckerberg to put women’s safety first ✍️
goodlaw.social/af3w
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
Even Ofcom admits it.
Instead of doubling down on further digital prohibition and censorship, it is time for Labour to scrap the Online Safety Act.
Even Ofcom admits it.
Instead of doubling down on further digital prohibition and censorship, it is time for Labour to scrap the Online Safety Act.
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
Ofcom admits there’s been "no significant change" in children encountering harmful material since the Online Safety Act came into force.
The law created giant digital ID honeypots and rampant censorship - while failing to stop harm.
The left fell into a Tory surveillance trap by backing content prohibition over platform accountability. Why are we now expanding a broken law into subjective topics like "depression" and "body image"?
It’s time for a total rethink - which must start with Labour scrapping the Online Safety Act.
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
Labour wants to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote, but how can young people make an informed choice if the Online Safety Act censors the climate debates that shape their future?
If they are mature enough to vote, they are mature enough to read about government policy.
Labour Digital Rights Network retweeted
When progressive leaders engage in this type of performative asceticism - or ban entire age groups from accessing the news - they cede the digital public square entirely to the right.
We have to be in the conversation to win the argument. Stop the moral posturing.
When progressive leaders engage in this type of performative asceticism - or ban entire age groups from accessing the news - they cede the digital public square entirely to the right.
We have to be in the conversation to win the argument. Stop the moral posturing.
Labour wants to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote, but how can young people make an informed choice if the Online Safety Act censors the climate debates that shape their future?
If they are mature enough to vote, they are mature enough to read about government policy.