Bev Turner

This is so shocking because we know the authoritarian intent of this government.

I've spoken to you before about the Belfast riots where the response was actually not to talk about illegal migration and the perpetrator of that act, but to talk about the fact that social media needed to be clamped down on in times of crisis.

So what this new policy that the government is proposing is to ban social media for under-16s.

So that will mean...

TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, all of these platforms that children use on their devices will be banned from spring next year for under-16s.

Now, it might sound, of course, like an honorable thing to do.

Anyone who's got kids knows that the main thing that we argue about is their screen use, but that's mainly about being addictive.

Right.

What this will mean, you can't prove a 13-year-old is using TikTok unless you're proving that a 30-year-old can use TikTok.

So it will be facial scanning.

It will be having to give up your anonymity online so the government and big tech

can always see what you're doing, what you're posting, what you're reading, what you're photographing.

It genuinely is the stuff of nightmares, but those of us who've been watching Keir Starmer closely knew that this was always his intention.

There's no other way to prove your age.

This is what's happened in Australia.

We are basically copying what they introduced in December of last year.

Now, there's no evidence yet that it's had any positive effects on the mental wellbeing of children, which is ostensibly what this is all supposed to be about.

But I think that is just dressing up

the door to the digital cage as a velvet rope.

And frankly, who would argue against keeping children safe?