UK teen ban is a 'pretty headline', Roblox rolls out Kids and Paris enters deepfake fight
Hello and welcome to Everything in Moderation's Week in Review, your need-to-know news and analysis about platform policy, content moderation and internet regulation. It's written by me, Ben Whitelaw and supported by paid members like you.
What do you do when the biggest stories of the week are also the most opaque? Both the UK social media ban (see: Policies) and the Fable 5 model directive (see: Products) are both hugely consequential and yet frustratingly light on details.
The temptation is to have a unique take (if that's even possible nowadays) but I preferred to watch the reactions play out — parents vs policy experts, for one — and find someone to discuss the detail with. On this week's Ctrl-Alt-Speech, that person was former Meta and Niantic T&S leader, Jen Weedon. Together, we close our apps and think of England before digging into Spotify's AI podcast problem.
In fact, that's sort of EiM's whole approach. Pay close attention, make sense of the overwhelm, admit where you're not sure and find someone who does. If you value that, consider becoming an EiM member (you can even expense it with your employer).
Here's your Week in Review. Thanks for reading — BW
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
As I noted in last week’s Week in Review (EiM #339), the under-pressure UK government announced its under-16 social media ban on Monday. The details remain vague but we know that it will come into force in spring 2027 and affect TikTok, YouTube (not Kids), Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and X/Twitter.
Livestreaming and messaging strangers will also be restricted for 16 and 17-year-olds across a wider but as yet undefined group of services, while we are also expecting to hear more about an 8:30pm digital curfew in what prime minster Sir Keir Starmer is dubbing "Australia Plus" — which isn't the selling point he thinks it is.
How it played out: With so little concrete policy to go on, I've been focusing on following the reaction in traditional media and across my personal network:
- The BBC spoke to a group of smart kids about what they thought about the ban — which only made me sad that just 1 in 10 of the 116,000 people who responded to the consultation process were children.
- A Spectator columnist called the ban “no more than a headline” albeit a “pretty headline” while a Labour MP writing for Politico argued that “banning platforms may generate headlines, but making platforms safe would actually solve the problem.”
- The Guardian’s media literacy lead wrote that a ban is “a signal that there is much more to do” and called for additional funding to help children understand how media works.
Across my LinkedIn feed and various WhatsApp groups, I watched — and wrote about — a strange, split-screen experience unfold: parent campaigners rejoicing and policy experts concerned about what the implementation would actually look like. It made me think of the UK’s departure from the European Union a decade ago.
Ben Whitelaw
Elsewhere, India has temporarily blocked Telegram until next week (22 June) due to concerns that the app continues to be used in an ongoing medical exam fraud saga. The BBC reported how the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) — which is the way students get into medical college in India — was taken by more than 2 million students back in May — only for the results to be scrapped after reports of leaked papers. The retake is on 21 June, the day before the ban ends. Sadly, not the first time a government restricts a platform as part of its crisis management strategy and certainly not the last.