Will Starmer's social media ban for kids really happen?
6/15/202644 min
In what feels like one of the few genuinely radical decisions of his premiership, Keir Starmer has announced an almost complete ban on social media for the under 16s, starting next spring. Messaging apps will not be included, but YouTube (ie “television”) will.
Does the ban make sense? Will it actually happen? And is Starmer now thinking about legacy projects at this febrile moment of his leadership? We speak to the AI minister Kanishka Narayan.
Later Jess Asato MP found herself undressed by Grok - along with around 3 million others. She’s now suing Elon Musk to make sure X takes responsibility for sexualised image creation - including an estimated 23,000 of children.
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 00:00
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Speaker 10:28
[upbeat music] This is a global production.
Kanishka Narayan· Guest0:34
We're banning social media for under 16s.
Speaker 30:37
But if you suddenly get the, the force of the American government coming at you and saying, "You can't do this to our social media companies."
Emily Maitlis· Host0:44
There are people who feel that, Keir Starmer, the government has let the companies off the hook because all that happens now is that children have to be the ones banned. The companies carry on spewing whatever gross stuff they want, quite frankly.
Jess Asato· Guest0:58
There was a video, an AI-manipulated video on Grok that was made of me being surrounded by a group of men, chloroformed, and I faint, and my skirts are lifted up as if for- Yeah ... some horrible sexual assault.
Speaker 31:11
It's not an easy thing to do. I'll be honest about that. We haven't rushed into it. We've looked carefully at the evidence, and we'll have to adapt our approach as technology changes, learn from other countries which are taking similar steps. And