At the chalk face: The UK social media ban debate

At the chalk face: The UK social media ban debate

AI, social media, and online safety – where do we draw the line?

In this episode of At the chalk face, Craig and Dave tackle one of the biggest challenges facing education, technology, and government today: protecting young people online in a world where social media, AI, and digital tools are increasingly intertwined.

With ministers exploring tougher measures around social media access for children, the conversation asks a surprisingly difficult question: what actually counts as social media anymore?

From TikTok and Snapchat to AI chatbots, collaborative documents, YouTube, and educational platforms, the lines are becoming increasingly blurred.

Join Craig and Dave as they discuss:
✅ The government's plans to improve online safety
✅ Whether social media bans can really work
✅ Lessons from Australia's approach
✅ The growing role of AI in education and online interaction
✅ The challenge of balancing child protection with digital literacy
✅ How potential legislation could affect schools, teachers, and learning platforms
✅ Whether educational tools could be caught up in future restrictions

As former Computer Science teachers, Craig and Dave explore the real-world implications for classrooms, students, parents, and educators, while asking what practical solutions might actually make a difference.

💬 We'd love to hear your thoughts:
What should count as social media in 2026?
Should AI chatbots be included in age restrictions?
How can we better protect young people online without limiting educational opportunities?
Leave a comment and join the discussion.

🔗 Discover more teaching resources and support for Computer Science teachers at Craig'n'Dave

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Website & resources – Craigndave.org
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Ministers have said that digital ID could support text used to protect children online, but no one can agree what social media is anymore.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hello, welcome back to the at the chalkface with myself and my colleague Dave. We are both ex-teachers of computer science in the county of Gloucestershire. And the only reason we don't teach is because we are busy providing resources for everything computer science for you. So if you're unaware who we are, please head over to craigandave.org and check us out. And if you're a returning guest, obviously we haven't bored you to death, so welcome back. So we're going to touch on something today, which is forever an increasing issue. But we're going to look at it from a few different angles. So we're going to look at AI, social media, and what the government is doing about it. Now, I want to tackle this at a few angles, Dave, because we know. I mean, how long have you been standing up in schools and giving talks about e-safety and responsible use of social media? I mean, you must have done that, every head of the department's done that. You speak to the parents, you speak to the SMs. This is not a new thing, but the access to social media, um, the frequency with which kids are exposed to it, the ever-increased number of platforms, and now obviously the introduction and integration seamlessly of AI into all these tools and software. It's um, you know, it's going higher and higher up on the government's radar. And look, let me start because some people can accuse us, Dave, of being a bit sort of like DFE or government bashing on this channel, and we're not. You know, the government clearly has very good intentions. I mean, who can argue with um trying to prevent harm to young people? You know, we know that online bullying, um, you know, all those areas around abuse, child safety, you know, emotional health and well-being around too much use for improper use of social media. These are all real problems, you know. So uh we understand, but Keir Starmer has been pretty, pretty blunt about this. Uh, we don't know the nuances, this is why we're gonna get into it. Pretty blunt. You know, they've come out and just said, you know, we need to do something. Um he's used the word like game changer, uh, but we don't know what. So everything is out for consultation at the moment. And we're hearing things from a complete ban on social media, but what does that mean? Where's the line drawn? So that's kind of what I want to get into because this is not new, but this potentially could be huge for young people. And I've I've got thoughts and opinions, but uh I'd love to hear your uh initial gambit on this before we get into it, Dave, because there's a lot here.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Yeah, I mean, it feels like um this has become a perennial topic. It feels to me like uh we're talking about this quite regularly um at the chalk face. And I know a while back um Kat and I did an episode about um banning phones in schools and all that kind of thing. And it feels like um the rhetoric is uh is going up another notch now, and it's not just about banning phones in school, it's about banning social media for young people full stop. And I absolutely concur with you when um you opened with, look, there are genuine harms to young people online. I mean, that is true, and uh, you know, there are reports on the news um quite regularly uh with very distraught parents uh with you know it's situations and issues that have happened to their children. And it's heartbreaking, and rightly so. They're banging on the door of number 10 and um they're making themselves known in the media and they're putting a lot of pressure on the government. Uh, rightly so. Um, it feels like the tech industry doesn't really take this seriously, or if they do, they don't really know how to completely solve the problem. You can't deny they're not putting lots of personnel and lots of money into um trying to solve the problem. But let's face it, it's ineffective. And some people would argue that given the profits that they make, it's really just uh a token gesture rather than a genuine attempt to try and protect young people. It's not easy, and we're going to get into that uh this episode and try and sort of unpick some of the difficulties behind all that. But uh I I agree with you that it's something that the government are going to do. We don't know exactly what yet, but from my perspective, it feels like they've been backed into a corner. I don't think the government have had a clear strategy on this, and I think that it's due to the parents that have been lobbying them uh continuously because they want change from what happened to their children that have kind of forced the government into this position of having to do more. I think they've been dragged along reluctantly, despite what uh Keir Starmer might now be saying. He certainly wasn't saying this um earlier in the parliament, would be my take.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Yeah. I think this is where the other side of it comes for me, because yes, you know, the good intentions, the need to protect our young people, no one can argue with that, and no one should argue with that. That all makes perfect sense. But just to use an analogy, when it comes to social media, it's not a case of the barn door is open and the horse is bolted. You know, you can't even see the barn door anymore, Dave. There is no barn door. Uh this is out there. So I am just nervous as an educator that the nuances of this don't get lost, and we come down with a sledgehammer on what is actually a very complicated issue. Because for every potential harm or danger through the use of social media and the use of online content, there is a huge benefit. You know, you didn't ban kids from the library when it started, we then didn't ban kids from Google when it was used. Now, with the introduction of AI, and we're going to get into that and the extra problems this causes for the government in a minute, but the the vast benefit of these tools is equally, you know, as beneficial as all the downsides. Now, we have to put those protections in, obviously. But where does the response, though, Craig?

SPEAKER_01 6:44

If I can interject that, because I think the question though is we often, and perhaps it's just due to our teaching and the way we would teach students to look at sort of both sides of the story, to weigh up the argument, put together a balanced argument. You know, in teaching, we quite often encourage the students to put forward a balanced argument. Yeah. But I wonder whether there is a balanced argument here. You know, when you say, um, you know, I'm a little bit worried about um all the good things um that you know these applications can do, weighed against the thing that the potential harms and things like that. We kind of you almost kind of put that forward as a balanced argument. And I wonder whether the harms just so significantly outweigh the benefits that why are we even talking about benefits anymore? Because they're just not as significant.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Right. So that's an interesting argument, and an argument the government could go down. And let's say we go down that route. Well, you can talk about all the benefits, but you don't go and put something out there and give children the access to these benefits if there's a risk of that harm. Because if the harm happens, in the worst case scenario, a child sadly loses or takes their own life, you can't justify that against the benefits that they could have gained. So easy argument, we just ban it. I'll go back to my horses already bolted argument though. What do schools do? This stuff is still out there. Social media is prevalent in society, AI is now prevalent, it's integrated. It is the world we are in, and it is the world that children are growing up in and the area they will enter. So, where does the education then happen? Um, do we just teach about these things without ever touching on them? Um, you know, we're actually writing some units at the moment for our new key stage three on, you know, e-safety, well-being, uh, online safety, all this kind of stuff. And it occurred to me, I said you other day, I'm teaching stuff about modern social media platforms and safe use to year sevens and eights. And technically, none of them should have these platforms anyway, because they're not old enough to sign up. Reality is different to, you know, what may be in the terms and conditions of a platform. So I'm worried that we will lose something in in this. It's like, where is this then stuff? You know, we can't just bury our head. It's the abstinence approach to teaching sex education in America, which was forlorn for so long. Well, just teach, don't do it. Well, that doesn't stop children doing it. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Yeah, I I do know what you mean, and you're right. And um, I think, you know, in Australia and around the world, they've sort of woken up to this idea of well, we can't put it back in the box. Um, social media is out there, so what we need to do is mitigate against it. And educate. And Australia, we yeah, but Australia's an interesting case study because, of course, they've gone further than education, they have actually gone for a social media ban for young people. So I think we can now begin to start evaluating the impact of that because it's been in for a little while now. Um trying to inform the practice in our own country, right? And in Australia, um it's been quite obvious that children are still using social media, they're finding ways around the ban. I mean, shock, horror. I mean, anybody that works with young people can tell you that um they are going to find a way to do things that they want to do. And of course, there have been criticisms um because of the way they've chosen which applications should be banned for young people. And so you've got applications like Roblox and Discord, they weren't were not included in the ban. And it just feels crazy when the functionality of those apps is exactly the same as the functionality in some of the other apps. But what I want to kind of explore uh with you, Craig, is something you you touched on a moment ago there. You've mentioned the word AI a couple of times now, and I think what we need to do is sort of define what we mean by social media. And I think one of the concerns is can we even define social media anymore? Because what what do we mean by social media? If we're just talking about um an interaction between a student and another unknown person, or even an interaction between a student and a known person using online tools, then hey, this opens up uh well all sorts of of possibilities. And maybe it's not even a person. You meant you mentioned AI, and so you know, maybe this interaction doesn't even have to be with a human being. So I guess the question is simple and the answer is very difficult. What is social media?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I thought this was where you're gonna go, and this is a huge problem because if you say you're gonna ban social media or help it, well, where is that line? What's the definition? I don't think there is a clear one. Yeah, you can come back, you can you need you can be quite blasé and produce a paper pretty quickly and say, Oh, we're gonna ban the use of these half a dozen popular platforms, and you roll off the likes of Instagram and TikTok and Snapchat and Facebook, and you go, brilliant, look at us, we've done well, but it's not that simple anymore. The lines are super blurred. As you said, if it's an interaction and all apps and software have AI integrated and kids are able to have uncontrolled conversations with them, do you include those? Well, if we are expanding our definition there, Dave, are we including any system that's got AI tutoring built in? What about? I was literally um working with you the other week on um a Word document. And you know, I and I was in it, you were in it, we weren't even on a call together, and I wanted to say something to you, and I literally just typed in the Word document. I literally typed a sentence in the Word document to get your attention and highlighted it in bold. You were like, Yeah, give me a give me a call, Craig. But hang on a second, that's not so you what about collaborative online working and documents like that? So someone could just pop in there and start sending abuse? Well, yeah, of course. I mean these things, it's so blurry. You can't be talking about banning collaborative working because that has aspects of social media, but if it has interactions that allow you to have a conversation with another person, then how different is it to using a direct message chatbot in Snapchat or TikTok? It's not so the lines are incredibly blurred. What about us on this YouTube channel, Dave? Uh seriously.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Yeah, I mean, you know, the YouTube channel, I mean, we set it up to be one way uh in the sense that we create a video, we expect the students to watch it for their homework or revision. Sorry. Yeah, and we disable comments. And we disable comments on those kinds of videos, absolutely, because we want it to be uh one way. And then of course we end up getting emails saying, Oh, you've disabled comments on your videos because you don't want anybody to criticize your content, you don't want anybody to spot uh where you've made mistakes, or you know, we get all sorts of negativity coming back through um through other channels. And so we thought, well, we'd do some other videos where we do enable the comments to kind of prove that we're not disabling comments for those sorts of reasons. Um and so yeah, you end up with these uh with these interactions, and some of the interactions I've noticed um on the comments of some of our videos, they're not particularly healthy, you know. They are um criticizing not just the content but the creator. And it it's it's not on really, is it? Um so okay, the answer is you ban YouTube for young people. Um sounds simple, but that would have a serious effect on us and the way we teach, because we rely on having a stable platform to host videos that stream effectively, that provide subtitles and chapterization and all the other benefits that you get from YouTube. Not the social interaction elements, we're not that interested in that bit, but all the other things that augment the content and allow students to consume the content on a variety of devices without having to worry about um codecs and all sorts of things. And so it's very, very useful for education. If we have to then go and host our videos elsewhere, that's fine. But where are we going to host them if all these platforms have uh been banned for young people? You know, we're either gonna have to provide a third-party tool or find a third-party tool that enables um video streaming, but it's not gonna come with all those other benefits that are built into YouTube. Um, or we're just gonna have to give the videos out to um to teachers in another way as part of our resource package. But then, of course, what we've lost is all the opportunity for other teachers to discover us, um, you know, through all that that growth that you get through the automatic promotion of YouTube content. So it it's it would damage us quite significantly, I think, if YouTube was banned.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, yeah, but I mean, look, this isn't about us, but I I get it. But yeah, you think about the the wider, it's not as simple, is my point I was starting with. You know, the lines are blurry, and as we just said, you know, we're an educational channel. Yes, there are the others which are sort of maybe you know less wholesome. Uh, I get that. But when you take perfectly sensible um educational software tools, but now they're more closely integrating AI, collaborative working, the ability to sort of send messages and interact. This this line between a piece of software which is educational but has social aspects is more blurry. So we come back to that question you posed to me how do you now define social media? Well, if it's any piece of software that allows a student to interact directly or indirectly with another person or or with a person-like LMM chatbot. I mean, if that's where we go over the description of social media, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a piece of software out there that you almost couldn't classify as social media. It's a very blurry line now. So I'm going to be watching this as I think a lot of teachers will with um curiosity, which leads me to Sorry, go on, Dave.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Well, I was just going to say, before we kind of move on from that, I think there are a couple of interesting points that come out. And you mentioned, for example, AI tutoring systems. One thing that's very popular in education, and it's growing at such a rapid rate at the moment, is this idea of having AI tools that support the student in their learning. They kind of provide the ultimate scaffolding and differentiation. They provide sort of one-to-one tuition and support for young people. And that could be incredibly powerful. I mean, I personally think that education is more about the human interaction. And I think these technology tools should be supporting the human interaction rather than replacing it. And I think some of these tools are at risk of promoting almost the replacement of the teacher. And I think there's a risk that it could go too far. But the point really that we're making here is that if it's about that interaction with that tool, then you've got to somehow safeguard that. And I wonder how easy it is. And maybe it's just easier to say, right, no interaction with large language models in any sense. And you know, that broad brush is just going to be uh so damaging to education. I mean, earlier you rightly said it's not about us when I was talking about YouTube. Absolutely. And my point really wasn't about us, it was about the potential damage on education and the education system because we're used to using these sorts of platforms for very wholesome things and activities. But the other thing that the government um are interested in is trying to prevent the I'm going to call it doom scrolling, but this idea that a content is not just addictive, but the tools are set up to encourage constant and continual use. And there's a worry um in the government and in amongst parents that students are spending too long on their phones because the algorithms and the way the content is driven is designed to keep people watching it. And again, I think it raises an interesting question about where you draw the line. Because if we think about some of the education tools out there, and smart advice would be an example where we want to encourage students to engage little and often. Now, for us, the key word there is little, right? Little and often. And that's where I would draw the distinction. So we in our platform say that students need to complete a certain number of questions each week. We're not saying they have to do it every day, uh, they can do it within a week. And um, it's a healthy level of content in order to get knowledge retention. So I think that's healthy, but I can see a situation where we somehow get kind of wrapped up in some legislation because we are encouraging what would be deemed continual use. And then it'll be interesting to see how it's all worded as to uh where they draw the line and to what extent we have to justify features or we have to even remove features because they could be seen to be contravening um particular clauses. I don't know, it's really difficult, but um, I completely agree with you when you say that increasingly the line is blurring between learning tools and social platforms. And I just want to double down on the Word document scenario that you gave. Because it what are we gonna do? Ban Dropbox? I mean, it's not gonna be difficult for a student to create um a Google Doc or Microsoft Office document. I mean, we're not gonna ban all word processors, right? So, what stops a student putting a Google Doc or a Word doc or you know, any document tool? It doesn't really matter what it is. Um, and then you you share that through tools like Dropbox, OneDrive, whatever it is, and you announce to the world, hey, here's a link. Join us to discuss this. And all of a sudden, you've turned a very innocent Word document into something that is an underground social network for young people that if you know, you know. If you have the link, you have the link, right? Yeah. And I know that sounds stupid, but it is the reality.

SPEAKER_00 22:05

It is no different. Yeah. It is no different. At the end of the day, the contents of that document are just a uh recorded, scrollable, readable link of a chat history. Well, that's no different to a chat history in any other social media app. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

So now I wonder. Are we going too far before we kind of hone in on some of the more educational things? I do wonder whether banning social media is really the right approach. And I know people will say, oh, well, you're in the tech industry, you're bound to say that, you're bound to be on the side of the, you know, the tech industry. I'm not. I think maybe as you say, because the horse is bolted and it's out in the field and there is no barn door anymore to shut, that um and there are so many loopholes, potential loopholes and ways around the system, that what we actually need to do is not drive this behavior underground, which is what will happen, but we actually need to say, right, we need to take the providers of tech solutions much more seriously, and the onus has got to be much more on them to protect the young people. So let's not ban the tools, let's put the legislation on the tools, if you like. Um, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

I know it's hard, and and and where I was gonna go, because I mean we could talk for ages about this, we've already spoken for almost half an hour, but I don't want to leave before we talk about, and this is almost an impossible and unfair question to pose to you, Dave, but you know, the reality of teachers in the classroom, the answer is we don't know yet, obviously, because we don't know how this will play out, uh, what the ban will look like. But of course, what we're talking about here, you mentioned earlier the conversation with you and Kat, and we also did one as well. We're not really talking here about banning the hardware, we're not talking about banning schools, we're really talking here about something more that has a bigger implication, banning the software. Um, so you know, what does this look like for teachers? You know, for ages we've been evolving our teaching and making better use of technology, and the kids seem to respond well to that, you know, introducing various software. I remember my last year of teaching, all sorts of departments, filling out socrative quizzes, the students would love it. You know, it's a way of recap learning in a fun, modern way. This is all all great, but now it feels like we're pushing back and railing back from that. So, you know, how do teachers deal with this this shifting landscape and what could be a potentially a huge ban on uh on software, depending how this all comes out? I I don't know is the answer, Dave, but I can see teachers having huge fatigue and worry and stress over and friction over all of this.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Yeah, I I think that's that's probably um inevitable. I mean, it will help to an extent that this is a national thing, it's not something driven by individual schools. So the friction between students and teachers won't be there to the same extent because they'll recognise that it's not down to the school or the school leaders. Um but the friction occurs in other ways. And quite apart from the potential damage to education uh that we've already discussed through not being able to use these some very wholesome tools and application of tools that maybe are sometimes not quite so wholesome. Um, it is about the consent fatigue that we might get. And we know how difficult it is when students try and create accounts in Smartervise and they mistype their email address and they don't get verification emails, and you get all sorts of friction in school because the students can't get past these sort of protections for tools that are even very innocent, but they have to provide these kinds of protections. And you end up with this digital administrative overload in schools that um just creates friction in the classroom because the students can't get onto the platforms, the teachers can't deliver their teaching the way they want with the platforms because students can't get onboarded, and you end up with all this situation. So if we who knows where we're going to end up, but if you end up in a situation where, for example, students have to um age verify through um their photo, very easy to get around for all the things outside school. But imagine having to do all these sorts of age verification things and everything else um in school. I mean, it's tricky enough getting students onto some of these platforms already. And um, and we're not talking about getting them onto TikTok, getting them onto Instagram. It's not that kind of thing. We're talking about educational tools that are going to get swept up in potential uh legislation and all sorts of additional barriers and I put in place. And it's just really, really tricky sometimes working with young people with tools. Everyone thinks that, oh, they're digital natives, you know, they use this every day, they know how to kind of sign up and log in and all the rest of it. That's all true when they're doing it for um themselves and to communicate with their friends. But if you're trying to get them onto a revision platform and they have to type in their school email address and it's something like John Smith at my school-academy trust.sch.uk. I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous. It's too difficult for them not to make a typo in things like that. And if we've got all these additional barriers like uh you now have to do X and Y and Z to get onto the platforms, I I can just see teachers saying, poor, this ain't worth it.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

We'll go back to chalk and slate, Dave. Nice and simple. Right. Look, we could talk about this for ages, and I have no doubt we will return to this topic in the future, especially when sort of maybe draft legislation comes out. We will see where it is. Uh uh maybe our fears were unwarranted and there's a sensible balance line. Maybe it will be a massive crackdown. Either way, I'm sure we will return and talk about it. Do you have any last uh thoughts or comments for our listeners' day before we wrap this up for today?

SPEAKER_01 28:25

It's just a question for the comments, you know. Where do you think the line is between uh learning platforms and social media? Uh, do you think AI chatbots and things like that should be included in a ban for young people? What are your views on what the legislation should look like to genuinely protect young people against harm online? No one disagrees with that, but how do you do it? We're interested in your thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Perfect. Well, thank you, everyone, and we'll see you next week for another at The Chalk Face. Bye bye for now.