Censorship, Safety, or Something Else? (Social Media Controls with Fey O'Brien)

Welcome to the Serious Privacy podcast, where Ralph O'Brien , Dr. K Royal, and Paul Breitbarth explores the implications of proposed social media age restrictions in the UK to under 16s, through the insights of university student (and our editor!) Fey O'Brien, emphasising the importance of digital literacy and open communications.

As the debate surrounding social media age restrictions continues, it is vital to consider the implications for minors and their rights. Engaging with younger voices like Fey's adds depth to the discussion, illustrating the importance of balancing safety and freedom in the digital landscape. Instead of imposing blanket bans, fostering digital literacy and open communication can pave the way for a more informed generation of social media users.

If you have comments or questions, find us on LinkedIn and Instagram @seriousprivacy, and on BlueSky under @seriousprivacy.eu, @europaulb.seriousprivacy.eu, @heartofprivacy.bsky.app and @igrobrien.seriousprivacy.eu, and email podcast@seriousprivacy.eu. Rate and Review us!

From Season 6, our episodes are edited by Fey O'Brien. Our intro and exit music is Channel Intro 24 by Sascha Ende, licensed under CC BY 4.0. with the voiceover by Tim Foley.

Transcript

Tim 0:04

You're listening to the award-winning Serious Privacy Podcast sponsored by Trust Ark. Please welcome your hosts, Paul Breitbart, Ralph O'Brien, and Dr. K Royal.

Paul 0:17

On June 15th, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, he may still be Prime Minister when this is released, but we never know in the UK. But on June 15th, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that the UK is likely to introduce a social media ban for under-16s, but also with additional limitations for 16 and 17-year-olds. This is following in the wake of the Australia social media ban and other developments around the world. Tons of discussions in almost every single country where minors are online, and other countries wondering whether this is a wise idea. The minors obviously are pushing back, parents are uncertain, so it is high time we talk about this issue in more detail.

Ralph 0:59

Small addendum to uh this week's episode. As you will have heard, Keir Starmer did announce the uh under-16 social media ban, though we haven't seen any legislative um measures to back that up as yet. But I suppose in the spirit of fairness, we should announce that after we recorded this on the Friday, on the Monday morning, Keir Starmer himself resigned as the Prime Minister of the UK. Now we still have a Labour government in place, uh albeit they will be under uh new leadership very soon, so we expect their current policies to continue. However, it's just worthy of note as we're heading out into yet more change in the UK. Um that uh even though Kiristowan made the announcement, he's no longer the Prime Minister.

Paul 1:48

You will recall that in October 2024 at the Jersey Global Privacy Assembly, we sat down with a number of students from Holier School in Jersey to also discuss this very issue. A lot of development since. So today we are continuing that conversation, and it is not just us as three hosts, but we have a very special guest, our very own editor, Fey O'Brien, who will be joining to give her perspective, and we're very happy to also hear from somebody who is slightly younger than we are.

K 2:20

Slightly.

Paul 2:20

My name is Paul Breitbart.

Ralph 2:22

My name is Ralph O. Brian.

K 2:24

And I'm K Royal, and welcome to Sirious Privacy. If we did actually do video episodes or snippets, you might have even seen big smiles on all of our faces for having Fey join us for this conversation. As y'all know, from the very first year Paul and I have talked about inviting minors on the show. We actually lined up some and then schedules never worked and things like that. We haven't had them, and my grandchildren are too young. I wouldn't want them on here at all. Their questions would be, huh? On what? But with that being said, unexpected question. Welcome, Fey. We're so glad to have you here.

Fey 3:03

Thank you. I would like to clarify I'm not a minor, just for everyone. I'm 19. I'm barely not a minor.

K 3:11

Barely not a minor, but yeah, sorry, I did give the impression.

Fey 3:14

Imply otherwise.

K 3:15

I didn't mean to do that.

Fey 3:17

Recently a minor.

K 3:20

When you turn 20, I'm gonna give you a hard time because you're no longer a teenager, but you're not considered an adult. That's fine. Right? 20 is that weird age, right? Between teenager and being an adult. Question, unexpected question. When you're in the shower or the bathtub, do you actually wash your feet?

Fey 3:40

Yes.

K 3:41

That was a quick answer.

Fey 3:43

Yeah. I wouldn't not. I literally I don't know anyone who doesn't. It's not a question to ask. I don't know.

K 3:52

I have asked this question in other forums, and there are people they're like, no, all the soap runs down to your feet, and the water's on your feet, they get washed.

Fey 4:00

Yeah, but so does all of the dirt.

K 4:02

Paul? Ralph?

Paul 4:03

Generally I do, yeah. Maybe if I'm in a rush, I don't, but makes perfect sense.

Ralph 4:09

There's a wonderful joke from an episode of Friends that says, when you're in the shower and you live with me and you pick up the soap, just remember the last thing I wash and the first thing you wash.

Paul 4:21

Oh no.

K 4:24

Yeah. Okie dokie.

Paul 4:25

And that's the full extent of your answer, Ralph. That's the full extent of my answer.

K 4:30

I'm gonna take it. That's gonna be the full extent of his answer, whether he follows somebody or he's before somebody. I'm gonna say I hate showers.

Paul 4:39

Yeah, but you extended your question to include the bathtub.

K 4:43

Yeah, I did. That's why I threw the bath in there. So showers, I do not wash my feet because showers absolutely exhaust me. And by the time I would get to my feet, I got no energy and I'm falling down anyway. In the bath, yes. If I'm in the bath to soak because my back hurts and not to bathe, no, I do not wash my feet. But if I'm there to wash, I wash my feet. So one of the ones I'm actually I pay very specific attention to because being raised with nurses, diabetics, and people with peripheral neuropathy have a lot of feet concerns. And if they don't take care of their feet, it's hard to do things when you don't have feet. So I grew up being trained to take care of your feet. So that was a lot more of an answer than I thought I would give when I asked the question.

Paul 5:29

And apologies to the users who consider this TMI.

K 5:32

Yes, they don't. They're like, it's KMI. It's the what's the thing with artificial intelligence, the K factor or something? You would think I know considering I'm in an AI master's degree now. I just learned about convoluted neural networks. Do not ask me what they are.

Ralph 5:49

Beautiful. I do wonder on a data protection podcast how much we actually say about ourselves considering we've been on the we've been broadcasting ourselves now for a number of seasons.

K 5:58

We believe in the transparency part of privacy, Ralph.

Ralph 6:01

Definitely. This is true. Before we go on to talk about social media, and we asked Fey to introduce herself and give her perspective. I do have a couple of short announcements before we get on to the main topic. Short announcement first, it is June the 19th, and if you've been hanging around data protection online, you're probably sick of people telling you that the Data Use and Access Act requires you to have a complaint process for data protection in the UK as of today. And for those people that haven't put a small note in their notice to say, hey, you can complain, who doesn't have that anyway?

Paul 6:34

That is something that you should already include under GDPR anyways. It is, it is. If the UK company didn't have that in, that would be an issue in itself.

Ralph 6:43

The only change is a change in process, really, in that you now can't go directly to the regulator. You have to go to the company first, the controller or processor first, and then the regulator after you've exhausted their complaints process.

Paul 6:55

The regulator. So who's the regulator?

Ralph 6:57

Ah, let's let's talk about the regulator, because as of today, Mr. Edwards has officially resigned.

K 7:04

Has officially resigned.

Ralph 7:06

He has did it via LinkedIn. Seems an odd way for a royal appointment.

K 7:12

I'm sure he took care of it and do another channel too.

Ralph 7:15

Technically, the king has to remove him as the commissioner, but he sent a letter to the digital government and data minister, Ian Murray, saying that he's under investigation, his position has become untenable because there have occasions where he's exercised poor judgment and made attempts at humour that was inappropriate and caused offence. This has now been confirmed by the ICO today as well, who have said that his behaviour fell short of the conduct expected from a public official, and the executive team will continue to lead. Now, what that means in the longer term is that we will operate under CEO Paul Arnold for the time being, and a new commissioner will be recruited, or should I say a new chair of the Information Commission will be recruited in the longer term. Business as usual, but it is a fair scandal, let's put it that way, and but continuity of the ICO will carry on.

K 8:12

We knew we didn't like him, we're just saying. That I have shared before of the one chance I had to meet him in person. And people pointed him out to me. Because I didn't have an opinion on him. I'd never met him. People pointed him out to me at the Global Privacy Assemblies, happy hours. I went up to meet him and I said, So you're John Edwards? He went, No. I'm like, What? He's yeah, someone's putting a joke on you. And I'm like, they told me that you were John Edwards.

Paul 8:42

He's I'm sorry, I'm not I'm like Inappropriate attempts of humor.

K 8:45

Are you pulling my leg? Yeah. I don't know what pulling your leg means, but and I'm like, I don't like you.

Ralph 8:54

We talked about inappropriate attempts at humor. So, Fey, before we go into the discussion, and actually I'm gonna back off from this one because for those people that don't know, there is a familial relationship between myself and our editor. So I'm gonna back off a little bit but and let the conversation go naturally. But we always give our guests an opportunity to introduce themselves, who they are, what their career's been so far, and what sort of perspective they had. So, Fey, over to you before I let Paul and K guide you through the rest of the conversation.

Fey 9:23

As I've said, I am a university student. I'm not I don't have the depth of knowledge that everyone else on the podcast does at this point. I am I've just finished first year of university in politics and international relations, so I have some level of interest in this field. The most thing I would have to say about the about the age age verification at bag social media and stuff is that I was recently a child.

Paul 9:57

Much more recently than K and I were, that's for sure.

K 10:01

My grandchildren say the same thing. That that was when I was younger. That was when I was a baby. That was when I and I'm like, you're four.

Fey 10:09

I was recently a child during a time when social media existed, right? Even when my dad was growing up, right? He don't think he had a phone until twenty-one.

K 10:22

A mobile phone or a phone?

Ralph 10:24

Mobile phone until twenty-one.

unknown 10:25

Okay.

Fey 10:26

And I got my first mobile phone at the age of eleven.

K 10:30

They did not exist when I was growing up, let's just say that fair.

Fey 10:33

I have some interest in this. I'm not affected by the law changes that are possibly going to happen. But I am, I would say, inclined to believe a certain thing due to my upbringing.

Paul 10:46

Yeah, and that's fair. Indeed, I also did not have a mobile phone and while growing up. I think I got one just after my 16th birthday because of my longer commute to school, and back then, so this would be in 90 Christmas 1998, I would say. Back then there were the first mobile phones. You couldn't even send text messages at the time. You could just do with a phone what you were supposed to do with a phone, namely calling. But that was the only thing you could do. And only two years later there were phones where you could send text messages and play some games. Social media didn't come in for many years later. I think I was able to create a Facebook account in 2003 when I went to study in France on an Erasmus exchange. But you could only connect to other people who were in universities because that was very limited at the time. Yeah, that was the intent of Facebook at the time.

K 11:41

So Arizona State was one of the ones they piloted it at, and they piloted while I was in law school there. So that was really interesting. I had my child, my first child, when I was 22. Cell phones did not exist. They came out soon thereafter, but they were the ones that you call them a brick. They were literally like nine inches tall, they were an inch and a half wide. You could drop that thing from the top of a skyscraper and it wouldn't break.

Fey 12:06

Yes.

K 12:06

But those were the mobile phones. Now they did follow the car phones. There used to be a thing you can install in cars, and the Mercedes AMG I had that I gave up in a fit of temper, actually had a phone in the console of the car. So I left it there because that was amazing, right?

Paul 12:26

Similar to the ones you used to have on planes.

K 12:29

Exactly. So very interesting. But this UK thing that's come out.

Paul 12:34

Yeah, let me give a bit of context because the UK is following Australia, where which was the first global restrictive ban on social media use for under-16th. It took effect on the 10th of December 2025. And according to eSafety, platforms have removed access to 4.7 million under-16th accounts already by mid-December 2025. Australia has imposed an H restriction on social media platforms, and they must take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from creating or accessing accounts, and that includes TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, X, Facebook, YouTube, but also messaging services to some extent. Gaming, professional networking, so LinkedIn, education, and health support services are carved out. In the US, in the United States, discussions are very fragmented. There is the Sixth Circuit that allowed Ohio's parental consent law for under-16s to be restored, reversing an earlier block. But Arkansas's newer restrictions were blocked in April 2026. The European Union has no EU-wide social media ban. So far, the focus is on age verification for minors and the age verification app that is being developed by the European Commission, which should be available by the end of the year. But there are member states that are in favor of a hard age ban, such as France, Spain, Denmark, and Greece, while others, and those are also the ones that are getting ready to take national action. While others say no, we want an EU solution, and that includes, for example, the Netherlands. There is a lot of guidance available that miners indeed should not be using social media, but so far it's the EU-wide discussion is stuck. And also, surprisingly, China has a restrictive model for age verification. Not as strict as Australia. There is more state control and more parental control, surprise.

Fey 14:38

Right.

Paul 14:38

But also a lot of content classification that is to be done. In addition, Brazil is working on age verification measures. Under 16s must have a link of their account to a parent or legal guardian. And also in Malaysia and in Vietnam, age restrictions have been implemented. In the UK, the idea is, similar to Australia, that Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X, and Facebook will all be blocked for under 16s. So all the user-to-user platforms. But in addition, there will be additional limitations on 17 and 18-year-olds, which, for example, or who, for example, will not be allowed to use streaming services, and further restrictions on them will be announced in the coming weeks and months. So the full legislative proposal is not there yet, but you can imagine that there is a heavy political debate going on in the UK. And I think, Fey, that is also where you come in.

Ralph 15:42

So what are your views, Fey? What's your experience of social media been? As it's been a net positive, a net negative?

Fey 15:48

I would personally say social media has been a huge positive in my life. As somebody who has, I'm autistic, I am trans. I feel like I'm sometimes limited in opportunities to interact with people socially in person. And for a long time in my life, since I was about 13 or 14, social media really helped me get out of my shell. It helped me with my confidence, and it helped me find spaces where I could be who I wanted to be before I would before I came out as who I am and before I I knew who I was myself, right? I could experiment with it online.

K 16:30

Fey, let me put out there first of all, that if you are uncomfortable in sharing any details about your personal life, do not feel any pressure whatsoever to share those details here just because we're talking about this topic. Yeah. If you want to talk about it in general, that is okay as well. I don't want you to feel any pressure whatsoever.

Paul 16:49

Yeah, and in addition to that, I'm wondering what kind of social media is it that were most or that you would consider most important in situations like yours? Would that be things like Instagram and X, or would it be more chat platforms and user-to-user platforms like Reddit, where you can indeed have longer conversations and share information?

Fey 17:14

I've never been the biggest fan of like stuff like Twitter or X or Instagram really. I've gotten them recently because that's how people tend to communicate nowadays.

K 17:26

Yeah.

Fey 17:27

Even when I was like 14, 13, 14, everyone used WhatsApp. Now it's everyone using Instagram, so I had to switch over to that recently, which I'm not the happiest with.

K 17:39

Fey, can we explore that a little bit? Yeah. We're talking about the government banning minors from social media. And you're given really good reasons why minors of vulnerable populations really need social media, even if that vulnerable population is, I'm a complete introvert and I have no confidence. How do I build my confidence? But now you're saying that you're essentially forced to use a particular social media if you want to stay in contact with people you communicate with.

Fey 18:10

I do think that's in that's something that's the case, right? In the modern day, especially as a younger person, right, everyone uses different things to communicate. There's so much different things, so many different things to use, and there's so many different platforms and that people just aren't on everything, right? And it often means that there are certain apps that take hold when it turns to comes to messaging. Like all of my university stuff is done on Instagram. My my the society and and univ in my university that I am will be vice president of next year. I will have an Instagram account for being the vice president of that society specifically. Like everything is done online. There's also Discord, which is personally something that I've used for many years now. And that's where I've gotten most of my use out of social media on chat platforms and stuff, such as Discord and Yeah, use on Reddit. And I feel like that's pretty important, especially for minorities, but not only for minorities, right? In the modern day everyone struggles with communicating, and you're not limited to having just the people you meet when you're very young. And to limit those options further just seems like a little bit of a waste of everyone, right? Of of making friends that you wouldn't be able to make before. Like I have friends in the US, I have friends in the Philippines, right? And I can make them now.

K 19:43

What do you think about the dangers they're trying to protect children from?

Fey 19:48

I think children are always exposed. I think that's something that's been the case for a very long time now. I it's not just since technology and all of that, I think it's just the general social way of progressing that children become more exposed as time goes on. Which is unfortunate. So But it's not just social media that does that, right? There's a lot of factors to play in children's safety. And I feel like the benefits of social media outweigh the possible safety concerns, at least to most people. I have been on social media for five, six years as a trans woman and I've suffered some pain from it, but I've generally had a very positive experience online. And it's led me to be who I am today, which I think is quite a confident person. I definitely wouldn't be that without on without being online.

Paul 20:48

I'm really happy to hear that. I think two of the concerns that are usually raised by politicians who want to introduce these bans are one, indeed protect minors against adults who can't behave, to put it mildly. But secondly, also the fact that a lot of pressure is indeed coming off social media to stay connected at all times, night and day, which could also have mental health effects.

Fey 21:14

Yeah, being connected too much is definitely a problem that can be considered the case. It's a problem that I've dealt with a little bit when I was younger. I struggled to get offline sometimes.

K 21:26

Did you have a parent that required you to get offline?

Fey 21:29

Yes, I had two of them. Did you listen sometimes? But I still feel I feel like that should be the parents' decision what to do, not the government's decision.

K 21:42

True. Now I did try to read through the UK to see if they had in there the ability for parents to to override the government controls. So for in some countries that have had bans or Apple that has put bans in, regardless of what country you're in, there are the ability. For parents to override the default controls that will be built in now. And like Facebook has children accounts where the parents control access. So I did look, I don't see the ability in there for parents to override Big Brother in the sky. What do you think about that? I think you're going to support the parents should have the ability to override, but there is also the danger that it's the parent parental interference that actually might be a danger for some of these kids.

Fey 22:30

Parental interference is sometimes an issue, yeah. If like a child was using a safe space online and such like a trans support group, if they were coming out as like trans or they weren't out yet and they were just like talking to people, which is massively important in minorities and stuff, to be in those groups to feel less alone. Something that I personally went through. If somebody is in those and their parents get to check their phone and decide oh why they're in there and do all that, like I feel like that could be a problem too.

K 23:04

Yeah.

Fey 23:05

And it's like you can't there's no one solution to this to appease everyone. There's you can That is so true. You can say, oh yeah, banning social media will have positives. Of course it will have positives, but also it'll have negatives. It will lead to children being losing a lot of their friends if they're currently online. It will cause a lot more dislawful behaviour, which in my opinion shouldn't be dislawful, but that's just my opinion.

Ralph 23:39

Why unlawful are you saying people going underground and finding alternative ways to access the platform or to access things that are less legitimate, let's say.

Fey 23:50

Which is dangerous, right? The uh there's also another debate in the UK right now about about drugs, and there are arguments to show that, for example, in Portugal, this is politics, sorry, in Portugal they banned, they legalized most drugs and regulated them instead of banning them, and it's caused the drug rate in Portugal to go down really heavily. And it's social media is a similar thing. Yeah. And it can be dangerous when left when made illegal and then made and then regulated less, right?

Paul 24:27

So would you be in favor of any other forms of regulation for social media companies, especially where they target minors?

Fey 24:36

I think it's difficult to achieve that without selling without making minors sell personal data and endangering miners further. The whole thing is child safety, but a lot of it is about seems to be about collecting IDs more than that.

K 24:55

Yeah, identity verification.

Fey 24:57

Even if you're an adult like me, right? Even if you're an adult, you have to you now currently have to place your ID or scan your face to an AI bot or whatever it is.

Ralph 25:08

Do you want to share how you got round age verification recently?

Fey 25:12

What, a while ago?

Ralph 25:13

Yeah.

Fey 25:14

Pictures online, you can just search up pictures of adult people and put them in front of the camera and sometimes it'll work for you, right?

Paul 25:22

This is UK only for now, right? This is verification.

Fey 25:25

Yeah, yes, yeah. But I think in Australia too, from my memory, the there was a study that showed that more children who should have been banned from social media still have access to it than those who are now banned. It's not it's I feel like even if it was a positive thing, which I disagree that it is, to regulate and ban and take data like that and collect IDs, it's so difficult to achieve without causing children, incentivizing children to break the law and create new laws that sort of oppress people, basically.

K 26:08

Yeah. There's a couple of other measures, not a couple, several other measures that are being considered, and these are also not unheard of. Some of the countries around the world have started doing this. I'd love your input on these, and we've kind of touched on these a little bit, not one of them. Overnight curfews, banning social media overnight for minors, or I guess maybe even the use of a mobile device. I don't know.

Paul 26:30

Why only for minors? Why not also for adults?

K 26:33

Breaks or caps on infinite scrolling, so doom scrolling, forcing a break. And I know at one time I even had Instagram pop up a mess and go, You've been here a while. Wouldn't you like to take a break? Not really.

Ralph 26:45

I think that's my point. You know, my point is why only children deserve protection? There are vulnerable levels.

K 26:50

Yeah, that wasn't for children. That was to an adult, so I appreciated that. But then also the romantic companion in AI chatbots. And that one we have not touched on. And if you're not comfortable speaking about it, you don't have to.

Paul 27:03

That's not necessarily a social media. This did that would be out of scope for this ban.

K 27:07

For social media? No, the UK government is considering it as part of their social media ban because chat Yeah, sorry.

Fey 27:14

Something I would say on all of that is that social media isn't just communicating with people. It's it's the UK defines it as such, but it really isn't just sharing and for example, a lot of children use YouTube. It's YouTube is one of the six big apps that is planning to be banned in the law changes that are being done. But for example, I used YouTube when I was a lot younger to inform my interest, to find out what I liked and what I I don't think I would be doing politics, or I don't think I'd have the interest in history I do now without YouTube. Right? Right. That's not interacting with other people, that's me interacting with the world in a way that's never been possible before. And I think that's so important. I think education through online platforms that has been that will be banned in the future and revising for tests. I was thinking about this earlier actually. How about the people who are in the same age group as those 15, 16? They can be in the same school age groups.

K 28:31

Yeah. What would you think about a ban for kids under seven?

Fey 28:36

A ban for kids under seven. Isn't that already banned? Because people aren't allowed on social media at all.

Paul 28:42

The user terms don't allow under 13s to have accounts.

K 28:46

So they're already banned technically.

Ralph 28:49

And we have had indications in my own house where people have gone on to PlayStation accounts, play online games with their friends at 11, let's say, and therefore put in a different age when they created their accounts.

Paul 29:02

And you would never have done that if you had the opportunity, Ralph.

K 29:06

Yeah. My grandchildren do gaming, and my concern has been there should not be any communication allowed during gaming in private chat rooms. There shouldn't be any images being able to be shared in gaming in private chat rooms. If you want to share your gaming experience, there are other channels to do that on that you can connect to your gaming, but don't do it directly in the gaming, or am I just not a gaming person and don't understand this?

Fey 29:34

A lot of games do have social aspects.

K 29:37

Yeah.

Fey 29:37

A lot of games it's it's it's it's difficult to say like nobody should play playing multiplayer games online anymore, right? Because I feel like multiplayer games do have uh have a function. People like to have other real people on the other end of the screen, even if they can't talk to them. And if they can, that's a way to communicate, that's a way to make friends, that's a way to it does inc it does have some risk. However, there are methods within those platforms to block accounts that are dangerous and stuff like that. And the real thing I think is that people should be educated. If people were more educated on this, on on social media and about how to stay safe, then we wouldn't really we don't need a ban anyway, but it would be We need people to know.

Paul 30:34

So do we do enough when it comes to education? I think that's also one of the topics that my panelists at the GPA mentioned is that they would have loved to learn more in school about social media, how to use it, what the risks are, what to pay attention to, how to deal with all the settings that are there. Is that where we need improvements?

Fey 30:56

I don't think there is enough education over social media in schools. I think it's I didn't really learn much about it at school. A lot. Personally, I learned most about it from my family, most about social media, most about safety as a whole. I feel like that is something that really needs to be promoted in schools. I think that it's way more important to not limit people's expressions and not limit people's freedoms. And instead, I think it's better to educate them upon the world and the modern world we live in, which does have its benefits from being in a modern world. Social media does have its benefits, gaming has its benefits, everything has its benefits. And we should teach people we should teach the people the benefits, the harms, the dangers, and let them make their own decision, even as children. Why does there need to be a specific boundary there of no, you can't do this?

Ralph 31:51

That is fascinating. You mentioned there that you've got a lot of education at home, uh-huh, and you were unfortunate in that you grew up with a father who was a data protection professional. What about other people? Because I may do remember conversations many years ago saying, Well, all my friends have this.

Fey 32:08

Yeah. Yeah, I think the I think that's why education is so important, because I feel like I had safety when I was growing up that a lot of people somewhat didn't because they didn't have the knowledge. And I think that's I think dealing with the knowledge issue is the most important fact of that. It's not that social media is a dangerous, horrible thing in itself. It's a tool. People use tools. You can use an axe to chop, or you can use it to chop up a body.

K 32:44

But Fey, at the time, did you feel like you were lucky to have a parent that knew it, or did you think your parent was paranoid and no but no other parent was like that, and oh my god, he's unfair?

Fey 32:54

I feel like I had some level of understanding, but it was difficult for me as a younger child. But I feel like if everybody has the education from a school setting, then they won't need there won't need to be such huge gaps in a lot of people's knowledge that lead them to get addicted and that lead them to have problems, which people are now trying to stop through legal action, which I think solving an issue by going, that's a new law, and you can't do this and you can't do that is a problem, where there are other ways to solve the issues whilst not ending people's freedoms, right?

Paul 33:35

So K and Ralph, you are both parents. I'm not, but what's your perspective here? Do you would you encourage such a ban, or would you indeed feel that there needs to be more responsibility for the parents and the school systems instead? Ralph?

Ralph 33:51

Yeah, actually I think there needs to be more responsibility on the companies that produce these things. As a data protection by design, data protection by default person, I feel that addictive features like infinite scroll, which I've caught myself doing, I've caught myself doom scrolling, right? So I think that if you're gonna put out a product to market, that product should have safety features built in and should be designed with humans in mind, not and I and I think that and I don't think that means that you can you should put profit over people. I believe you can have a win-win there. So I do believe a lot needs to be put on the companies to produce safe products without the sort of the A B testing and the infinite scroll and the big flashy addictive features that will keep people on it for hours and hours. So, yes, I totally hear what Fey's saying, and I do believe parents need to step in and be able to control, but often children are more technologically savvy than the parents.

K 34:50

Yeah.

Fey 34:50

With my point on education, educating children on how to be safe should just be another way that people the children are more technologically savvy because they need to be safer, right? Yes. And I feel like educating children on the dangers and the benefits both means that they can take care of themselves a lot better, which is useful for a child, right? To have some sense of individuality when they're younger.

Ralph 35:19

Identity, autonomy, yeah.

Fey 35:22

Yeah.

Ralph 35:22

Okay, final word.

K 35:24

My perspective is that it is not an easy situation from any side whatsoever. I don't think government regulation is necessarily the answer because uh the government tends to get things wrong, right? They just do. But I think the government has waited years for the industry to step up and self-regulate. I think it's along the lines of AI. You need a global set of cross-diverse viewpoints to try to come up with some hardcore, these are the guardrails, and then put it around. And if for some reason Europe thinks that the US is way too prissy and what do they call us?

Paul 36:06

Obnoxious.

K 36:07

Oh my God, not literal, conservative, way too conservative. That the U.S. is way too conservative and prissy. So that doesn't seem to be pulling itself out in what our social media technology allows people to do. So I think it's very thorny and there's not an easy issue, but I think that as we try to do this, we need to bake in an avenue for exceptions. There needs to be exceptions for parents to make a call. There needs to be exceptions for certain situations, right? It should be that when Fey was a child and realized who she really was in this skin. And if the law said she wasn't allowed to be on social media to meet other people and her parents were against who she was, she should be able to go to a school counselor or someone that has insight and understanding and explain her circumstances and let there be an avenue that she would have. Because I do believe it can absolutely harm a vulnerable population. It harms normal populations, but I think the harm is even further when it comes to vulnerable populations. Yeah.

Paul 37:11

Amen. So on that note, I think we all agree that banning social media outright is not the solution. This will be a lengthy debate.

K 37:20

Yeah.

Paul 37:21

Not just in the UK, but all around the world. So I'm pretty sure we'll continue the conversation. If you have an opinion on this, please do share it. You're also welcome to send us voice notes if you like to like us to include those in the podcast. More than welcome. Podcast at Serious Private for the Rest. For now, we'll say goodbye. See you next week. Goodbye. Goodbye.

K 37:43

Bye, y'all. Thank you for having me.

Tim 37:46

Thanks, Fey.

K 37:47

Thank you, Fey. Thank you.

Tim 37:49

Now that with Serious Privacy. Please subscribe on your favorite podcast app and leave us a review. You can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Blue Sky at Serious Privacy. Feel free to drop us a question or a comment. We'd love to hear from you.