Dear Editor
The only way it is possible to have a social media ban for children under 16 years old is for the rest of us to prove to each platform that we are 16 or over. By doing so, we will inevitably reveal our legal identity to the platform and hence to the state. This information then enables the authorities to punish any online comment of which they disapprove.
In Britain, where the police have for many years documented ‘non-crime hate incidents’, that is a frightening prospect. Especially given that the authorities’ perceptions of what is extreme and what is hate are widely different from those of the majority of the population.
This is all the more worrying given that the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has recently spoken favourably of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon Her vision is: ‘That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times.’ When coupled with the Justice Secretary’s plan to restrict trial by jury it is truly terrifying prospect.
The proposed social media ban for children should be opposed because it is a Trojan horse to enable Chinese levels of state control of adults online. Instead, we should remind parents that it is up to them to govern their children’s access to the internet.
Otto Inglis
Fife
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