More kids allowed to grow up free of angst and inappropriate content.
Nah
This is deplorable. Even I am losing faith in this government with its apparent complete aversion to actually committing to any reform. Oh let’s have some more “consultation” about “more flexible powers” that will amount to a handy excuse for government doing nothing. How about no. Let’s ban social media completely including for adults.
Agreed
Surely the RoF discussion forum is "social media"?
There were discussion forums before what we used to call “web 2.0”, and they were never referred to as “social media” then. Most would not call an old skool bulletin board like this “social media” and I wouldn’t propose to start.
I’d be absolutely fine with banning ROF tho, would improve my health and happiness no end
Rof is not social media, but some of the lunacy from social media seeps onto rof. Mainly from a few usual suspects who are addicted to twitter.
Yeah, the constant posting of Twitter links, along with admonitions that truly, the way to “educate yourself” is to plunge into that sewer of one-eyed, half-arse accountability free fake news, is a sad sign of the decline into wine soaked insanity of never respected, but at least occasionally on point poster, cookie. I don’t think there are too many Twitter addicts on here otherwise, the uselessness of that app is now cemented in most people’s minds.
Most would not call an old skool bulletin board like this “social media” and I wouldn’t propose to start.
In which case, I shall.
Who's seconding me?
-1
Something needs to give with social media. For the first time ever I have been using Instagram recently (to follow some family related content) and am obviously being spammed with content about the middle east in my feed. The amount of just outright misinformation e.g. 21 people died today in a missile strike in X location when that just didn't happen is really troubling.
I'm not in favour of banning things and I doubt a ban would stop kids using i.e. whatsapp or messaging systems as an alternative
and if I was china or russia I'd be rushing out another tiktok type service to get around the ban and capture then influence all the teens without access to social media
plus, you can see that age is not really the issue given how badly the boomers and gen x get suckered and herded with social media
You should have nothing to fear from Twitter. You can’t rely on trad routes for news or that it will be served up to you reliably just because of your background. Just use your loaf. Prove you’ve got one. Oh
Erm they are sending it back to a committee for more discussions at this point as there is quite a split. Does not mean if definitely wont be banned in the future. the commons have supported a government attempt to give additional powers to the secretary of state.
I don’t want my children on social media and I think it’s super unhealthy and unhelpful for children. And obviously children are easy to manipulate. So I would ban it for under 18s. But adults are adults. A ban for adults is the kind of authoritarianism I don’t like.
Twitter is a fooking cesspit of misinformation and bullshit
Anyone still using X as a reliable source is one or all of a fool, trolling, far-right or paid to promote it. - The political effects of X’s feed algorithm - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10098-2
You know on X you can use 'Following' to exclude the loons you don't follow, right? It's not rocket science.
British teenagers spend an average of 4.5 hours a day on social media. What other evidence is needed?
You know on X you can use 'Following' to exclude the loons you don't follow, right? It's not rocket science
You have to know who to follow though. A brand new X account on a new device will be fed far right and adult content within minutes of randomly scrolling.
If your using it for your niche hobbies and know exactly who to follow and you avoid the "for you" content then maybe it can be safe, but 99% of people aren't that sophisticated. They just want content that grabs them and before you know it they're dupes into spreading hate like hotblack.
The problem with social media (or one of them) is that defamation laws dont seem to apply, or cant be enforced. Newspapers employ people to check articles before publication. SM users post any old shite with impunity. It brings out the worst in the worst people.
Exactly Kimmy - which is why the government are giving the secretary of state more powers.
There is the online safety act that has a lot of protection for children.
Imagine supporting this govt like lou
diceman10 Mar 26 13:21
British teenagers spend an average of 4.5 hours a day on social media. What other evidence is needed?
What other evidence is needed of completely detached parents refusing to take any responsibility yet again for their sprogs and offloading their responsibilities onto the tax payer yet again!
FFS, you can set limits and restrictions on phones and if you don't know how you either google, chatgpt or ask the shop to do it.
You can blame the parents all you like sumo. But my stat is the reality.
This is an example of consultation culture being a pita. Need a bit more FDR esque urgency
no doubt there needs to be a bit of drive, urgency and direction and a lot less fannying about trying to build a horse by committee and getting a camel
I suspect a barrage of threats has been made behind the scenes from the US over this and maybe some big employers threatening to up sticks
But also, we do need a bit more parent engagement and policing of this, we've had 30 years of the internet so "I'm doddering old parent who doesn't understand computers and phones" simply doesn't cut it any more
Roffers can’t work Twitter shocka
Apologies if I have the wrong roffer here but I seem to recall you posting links to twitter that were AI slop and debunked conspiracy nonsense.
Could be wrong.
We should leave twitter as is. Honestly the idea that we should shut something down just because we dont like its content is totally authoritarian.
To give an example - We've lived through decades of the mainstream media bigging up house price rises as a positive when they've been a catastrophe for everyone under 50 and the future of the country.
That alone has far more damaging than any misinformation on Twitter - where anyone with a brain can usually spot the bias or the dishonesty pretty much immediately.
One could say the same about plenty of other topics obviously
Twitter is full of trash but also full of incredible content and insights that wouldn't get airtime in mainstream media. Outright Disinfo gets commented upon and community noted right away and if you want to believe stuff when its immediately obvious from the comments that its faked in someway or unfair or whatever then thats up to you.
Funnily enough its usually mainstream politicians, particularly the Labour ones, who limit this truth discovery process by limiting who can comment on their posts.
There is only one way to do free speech and thats to let it be free and let people judge the words for themselves.
Few if any GG. There's plenty more info on twitter than has ever been posted on here fyi faod.
Yes I do use Twitter recreationally for sports and music. It does sometimes try and push videos of people fighting and behaving poorly which I think is what hooks people in. Bit of the old ultraviolence to get the blood pumping and before you know it you're retweeting an AI slop video of a half lion half Nigel Farage creature torpedoing migrant boats in the channel.
Did someone seriously cite the Community Notes feature as an effective control on the spread of disinformation? Something well known to be seriously flawed and susceptible to manipulation?
"After purchasing Twitter and renaming it X , its new owner, Elon Musk, dismantled the platform’s content moderation systems, replacing them with what he aspires to be the “best source of truth on the Internet by far”: Community Notes.1 This system is, however, failing. Most Community Notes are never seen by users, allowing misinformation to spread unchecked.
Community Notes are generated by a system in which anonymous users sign up, write and rate labels for posts that provide fact-checks or provide context or missing information to misleading posts. X’s innovation in community-based decentralized fact-checking was – we generously assume – intended to be a democratic and transparent process where communities hash out debates and agree on mutually established facts. Of course, social media, like our democracies, does not operate this way. Our social media feeds have no neutral ‘town square’ for rational debate. In reality, it is messy, complicated, and opaque rules and systems make it impossible for all voices to be heard. Without checks and balances, proper oversight, and well resourced trust and safety teams in place, X cannot rely on Community Notes to keep X safe. Prior research by CCDH revealed that misleading posts rarely, if ever, had Community Notes attached to controversial issues such as the UK riots and election disinformation spread by Musk himself. The problem is that for a Community Note to be shown, it requires consensus, and on polarizing issues, that consensus is rarely reached. As a result, Community Notes fail precisely where they are needed most.
Despite a dedicated group of X users producing accurate, well-sourced notes, a significant portion never reaches public view. In this report we found that 74% of accurate community notes on US election misinformation never get shown to users. This allows misleading posts about voter fraud, election integrity, and political candidates to spread and be viewed millions of times. Posts without Community Notes promoting false narratives about US politics have garnered billions of views, outpacing the reach of their fact-checked counterparts by 13 times. Overreliance on an imperfect system for content moderation is risky. X’s divestment in trust and safety and reversal of previously established norms and community guidelines, all underpinned by its owner’s irresponsible behavior, have ushered in a new era for social media bosses. Musk’s behavior serves to demonstrate that after years of self-regulation, platforms can simply buck established norms and face few consequences for ensuing chaos."
"We find that the algorithm suppresses a substantial fraction of genuinely helpful notes and is highly sensitive to rater biases, including polarization and in-group preferences. Moreover, a small minority (5--20\%) of bad raters can strategically suppress targeted helpful notes, effectively censoring reliable information. These findings suggest that while community-driven moderation may offer scalability, its vulnerability to bias and manipulation raises concerns about reliability and trustworthiness, highlighting the need for improved mechanisms to safeguard the integrity of crowdsourced fact-checking."
I very much favour banning stuff, with extreme predge ideally
Nobody would say twitter or the community notes is anything like perfect but most tweets are open for comment by others and any popular post will be rapidly pulled apart by dissenting voices. By its nature that doesn't happen with mainstream media.
I actually think that between legacy mainstream media and social media we have the richest most diverse and in many ways healthiest information environment in human history. Nobody controls the information environment any more and between the two different types of information you can normally build a pretty good overview for yourself.
If someone only ever reads social media they will end up with a distorted view of the world. But then my mum and dad only ever ready the Daily Mail and their world views was no doubt ludicrously distorted. I suspect someone on social media ends up with a better overall view of the different view points to be honest. If they are going to believe everything uncritically thats their problem. Its not reason to ban everyone else from being able to use and enjoy the format.
Also - the Fact Checker linked to concedes that the two Community Notes it refers to were in fact "factually correct" but the Fact Checker felt they were "misleading". Thats entirely subjective.
Even the community notes it has dug out were true statements. Just read them. Whether they are fair or not is up to you. Personally I think that saying Albanese was not a lawyer when she has not qualified as a lawyer is perfectly fair comment and the Community Note is doing a better job than the Fact Checker.
It is in fact a perfect example of why I would rather read what I want on Twitter and make my own mind up about it. Not be fed some "official" "authoritative" "Fact Checker's" point of view.
most tweets are open for comment by others and any popular post will be rapidly pulled apart by dissenting voices
🤣 Once you've scrolled past the dozens and dozens of AI bot responses that automatically top the replies because they have a paid blue checkmark.
Seriously do you even twitter at all? The marketplace of ideas, it is not.
100% of tweets are complete and utter nutsack
Yeah I use it enough to know how to scroll through the rubbish. its really not hard.
Cop out
Nobody would say twitter or the community notes is anything like perfect but most tweets are open for comment by others and any popular post will be rapidly pulled apart by dissenting voices. By its nature that doesn't happen with mainstream media.
MANY IS THE TIME WHEN I HAVE READ A COMMENT ON TWITTER BY DISSENTING VOICES SUCH AS [email protected] OR [email protected] WHICH HAS REALLY MADE ME THINK, AND YOU JUST DON'T GET THEIR PERSPECTIVE ON MAINSTREAM MEDIA (GB NEWS TRIES ITS BEST BUT EVEN SO)
This is deplorable. Even I am losing faith in this government with its apparent complete aversion to actually committing to any reform. Oh let’s have some more “consultation” about “more flexible powers” that will amount to a handy excuse for government doing nothing. How about no. Let’s ban social media completely including for adults.
Agreed
Surely the RoF discussion forum is "social media"?
There were discussion forums before what we used to call “web 2.0”, and they were never referred to as “social media” then. Most would not call an old skool bulletin board like this “social media” and I wouldn’t propose to start.
I’d be absolutely fine with banning ROF tho, would improve my health and happiness no end
Rof is not social media, but some of the lunacy from social media seeps onto rof. Mainly from a few usual suspects who are addicted to twitter.
Yeah, the constant posting of Twitter links, along with admonitions that truly, the way to “educate yourself” is to plunge into that sewer of one-eyed, half-arse accountability free fake news, is a sad sign of the decline into wine soaked insanity of never respected, but at least occasionally on point poster, cookie. I don’t think there are too many Twitter addicts on here otherwise, the uselessness of that app is now cemented in most people’s minds.
In which case, I shall.
Who's seconding me?
-1
Something needs to give with social media. For the first time ever I have been using Instagram recently (to follow some family related content) and am obviously being spammed with content about the middle east in my feed. The amount of just outright misinformation e.g. 21 people died today in a missile strike in X location when that just didn't happen is really troubling.
I'm not in favour of banning things and I doubt a ban would stop kids using i.e. whatsapp or messaging systems as an alternative
and if I was china or russia I'd be rushing out another tiktok type service to get around the ban and capture then influence all the teens without access to social media
plus, you can see that age is not really the issue given how badly the boomers and gen x get suckered and herded with social media
You should have nothing to fear from Twitter. You can’t rely on trad routes for news or that it will be served up to you reliably just because of your background. Just use your loaf. Prove you’ve got one. Oh
Erm they are sending it back to a committee for more discussions at this point as there is quite a split. Does not mean if definitely wont be banned in the future. the commons have supported a government attempt to give additional powers to the secretary of state.
I don’t want my children on social media and I think it’s super unhealthy and unhelpful for children. And obviously children are easy to manipulate. So I would ban it for under 18s. But adults are adults. A ban for adults is the kind of authoritarianism I don’t like.
Twitter is a fooking cesspit of misinformation and bullshit
Social media bans for teens lack evidence - https://www.nature.com/articles/s44360-026-00083-4
Anyone still using X as a reliable source is one or all of a fool, trolling, far-right or paid to promote it. - The political effects of X’s feed algorithm - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10098-2
You know on X you can use 'Following' to exclude the loons you don't follow, right? It's not rocket science.
British teenagers spend an average of 4.5 hours a day on social media. What other evidence is needed?
You have to know who to follow though. A brand new X account on a new device will be fed far right and adult content within minutes of randomly scrolling.
If your using it for your niche hobbies and know exactly who to follow and you avoid the "for you" content then maybe it can be safe, but 99% of people aren't that sophisticated. They just want content that grabs them and before you know it they're dupes into spreading hate like hotblack.
The problem with social media (or one of them) is that defamation laws dont seem to apply, or cant be enforced.
Newspapers employ people to check articles before publication.
SM users post any old shite with impunity. It brings out the worst in the worst people.
Exactly Kimmy - which is why the government are giving the secretary of state more powers.
There is the online safety act that has a lot of protection for children.
Imagine supporting this govt like lou
diceman10 Mar 26 13:21
British teenagers spend an average of 4.5 hours a day on social media. What other evidence is needed?
_____________________________________________________________________
What other evidence is needed of completely detached parents refusing to take any responsibility yet again for their sprogs and offloading their responsibilities onto the tax payer yet again!
FFS, you can set limits and restrictions on phones and if you don't know how you either google, chatgpt or ask the shop to do it.
Academic10 Mar 26 14:15
Imagine supporting this govt like lou
__________________________________________________
how quickly we forget "fizz with liz" and "greatest budget ever" and "May is the new Iron Lady" and "it was just a cake"
15 years of desperately supporting that looks a might worse than Lou giving labour the benefit of the doubt
Roffers can’t work Twitter shocka
God help your clients
Soz, employers
Funny sumo, of the four things you put in quotation marks I’ve never said three of them. Presumably you were talking of some other poster.
Presumably bankruptcy will
Prevent provision of the 339k
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8eg2n83y1eo
You can blame the parents all you like sumo. But my stat is the reality.
This is an example of consultation culture being a pita. Need a bit more FDR esque urgency
no doubt there needs to be a bit of drive, urgency and direction and a lot less fannying about trying to build a horse by committee and getting a camel
I suspect a barrage of threats has been made behind the scenes from the US over this and maybe some big employers threatening to up sticks
But also, we do need a bit more parent engagement and policing of this, we've had 30 years of the internet so "I'm doddering old parent who doesn't understand computers and phones" simply doesn't cut it any more
Apologies if I have the wrong roffer here but I seem to recall you posting links to twitter that were AI slop and debunked conspiracy nonsense.
Could be wrong.
We should leave twitter as is. Honestly the idea that we should shut something down just because we dont like its content is totally authoritarian.
To give an example - We've lived through decades of the mainstream media bigging up house price rises as a positive when they've been a catastrophe for everyone under 50 and the future of the country.
That alone has far more damaging than any misinformation on Twitter - where anyone with a brain can usually spot the bias or the dishonesty pretty much immediately.
One could say the same about plenty of other topics obviously
Twitter is full of trash but also full of incredible content and insights that wouldn't get airtime in mainstream media. Outright Disinfo gets commented upon and community noted right away and if you want to believe stuff when its immediately obvious from the comments that its faked in someway or unfair or whatever then thats up to you.
Funnily enough its usually mainstream politicians, particularly the Labour ones, who limit this truth discovery process by limiting who can comment on their posts.
There is only one way to do free speech and thats to let it be free and let people judge the words for themselves.
Few if any GG. There's plenty more info on twitter than has ever been posted on here fyi faod.
Yes I do use Twitter recreationally for sports and music. It does sometimes try and push videos of people fighting and behaving poorly which I think is what hooks people in. Bit of the old ultraviolence to get the blood pumping and before you know it you're retweeting an AI slop video of a half lion half Nigel Farage creature torpedoing migrant boats in the channel.
Did someone seriously cite the Community Notes feature as an effective control on the spread of disinformation? Something well known to be seriously flawed and susceptible to manipulation?
"After purchasing Twitter and renaming it X , its new owner, Elon Musk, dismantled the platform’s
content moderation systems, replacing them with what he aspires to be the “best source of truth
on the Internet by far”: Community Notes.1 This system is, however, failing. Most Community Notes
are never seen by users, allowing misinformation to spread unchecked.
Community Notes are generated by a system in which anonymous users sign up, write and
rate labels for posts that provide fact-checks or provide context or missing information to
misleading posts. X’s innovation in community-based decentralized fact-checking was – we
generously assume – intended to be a democratic and transparent process where communities
hash out debates and agree on mutually established facts. Of course, social media, like our
democracies, does not operate this way. Our social media feeds have no neutral ‘town square’
for rational debate. In reality, it is messy, complicated, and opaque rules and systems make it
impossible for all voices to be heard. Without checks and balances, proper oversight, and well
resourced trust and safety teams in place, X cannot rely on Community Notes to keep X safe.
Prior research by CCDH revealed that misleading posts rarely, if ever, had Community Notes
attached to controversial issues such as the UK riots and election disinformation spread by
Musk himself. The problem is that for a Community Note to be shown, it requires consensus,
and on polarizing issues, that consensus is rarely reached. As a result, Community Notes fail
precisely where they are needed most.
Despite a dedicated group of X users producing accurate, well-sourced notes, a significant
portion never reaches public view. In this report we found that 74% of accurate community
notes on US election misinformation never get shown to users. This allows misleading posts
about voter fraud, election integrity, and political candidates to spread and be viewed millions
of times. Posts without Community Notes promoting false narratives about US politics have
garnered billions of views, outpacing the reach of their fact-checked counterparts by 13 times.
Overreliance on an imperfect system for content moderation is risky. X’s divestment in trust and
safety and reversal of previously established norms and community guidelines, all underpinned
by its owner’s irresponsible behavior, have ushered in a new era for social media bosses. Musk’s
behavior serves to demonstrate that after years of self-regulation, platforms can simply buck
established norms and face few consequences for ensuing chaos."
.https://counterhate.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/CCDH.CommunityNotes.FINAL-30.10.pdf
Fact check: Are X's community notes fueling misinformation? - https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-are-xs-community-notes-fixing-or-fueling-misinformation/a-73315972
Community Notes are Vulnerable to Rater Bias and Manipulation - https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.02615v1
"We find that the algorithm suppresses a substantial fraction of genuinely helpful notes and is highly sensitive to rater biases, including polarization and in-group preferences. Moreover, a small minority (5--20\%) of bad raters can strategically suppress targeted helpful notes, effectively censoring reliable information. These findings suggest that while community-driven moderation may offer scalability, its vulnerability to bias and manipulation raises concerns about reliability and trustworthiness, highlighting the need for improved mechanisms to safeguard the integrity of crowdsourced fact-checking."
I very much favour banning stuff, with extreme predge ideally
Nobody would say twitter or the community notes is anything like perfect but most tweets are open for comment by others and any popular post will be rapidly pulled apart by dissenting voices. By its nature that doesn't happen with mainstream media.
I actually think that between legacy mainstream media and social media we have the richest most diverse and in many ways healthiest information environment in human history. Nobody controls the information environment any more and between the two different types of information you can normally build a pretty good overview for yourself.
If someone only ever reads social media they will end up with a distorted view of the world. But then my mum and dad only ever ready the Daily Mail and their world views was no doubt ludicrously distorted. I suspect someone on social media ends up with a better overall view of the different view points to be honest. If they are going to believe everything uncritically thats their problem. Its not reason to ban everyone else from being able to use and enjoy the format.
Also - the Fact Checker linked to concedes that the two Community Notes it refers to were in fact "factually correct" but the Fact Checker felt they were "misleading". Thats entirely subjective.
Even the community notes it has dug out were true statements. Just read them. Whether they are fair or not is up to you. Personally I think that saying Albanese was not a lawyer when she has not qualified as a lawyer is perfectly fair comment and the Community Note is doing a better job than the Fact Checker.
It is in fact a perfect example of why I would rather read what I want on Twitter and make my own mind up about it. Not be fed some "official" "authoritative" "Fact Checker's" point of view.
🤣 Once you've scrolled past the dozens and dozens of AI bot responses that automatically top the replies because they have a paid blue checkmark.
Seriously do you even twitter at all? The marketplace of ideas, it is not.
100% of tweets are complete and utter nutsack
Yeah I use it enough to know how to scroll through the rubbish. its really not hard.
Cop out
MANY IS THE TIME WHEN I HAVE READ A COMMENT ON TWITTER BY DISSENTING VOICES SUCH AS [email protected] OR [email protected] WHICH HAS REALLY MADE ME THINK, AND YOU JUST DON'T GET THEIR PERSPECTIVE ON MAINSTREAM MEDIA (GB NEWS TRIES ITS BEST BUT EVEN SO)
this is a Govt of talkers...pathetic
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