I generally ignore the goings-on in other countries similar to Australia simply because their problems are their business, and we have more than enough of our own that we don't seem to be able to fix. But, this story mentions Australia and our ridiculous under-16 internet censorship.

The House of Lords has failed for the third time to add a ban on 16 year olds using social media to the UK government's Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

John Power, ‘Does banning social media for under 16s work?’ reckons that the government wants to push the Bill through sans ban until they get more information on harms to kids. If the government waits any longer, Power thinks, they will miss their chance, and the “evidence coming out of Australia (shows) that these bans do not work”.

So much for another of Albanese's ‘world firsts’ lighting the way internationally in child protection! Another joke from down under.

The Poms have found out that 61% of 12-15 year olds have continued to use the banned sites in Australia.

63 year old Albanese doesn't realise that kids who've had technology for ever know more about it than he and Mother Inman Grant do.

Understandably, the Australian censors and politicians don't like to talk about, but the article has a graph showing that of 66% of kids who had a YouTube account, 35% still have one; Ticktock 55-29; Instagram 49-25; Snapchat 49-23; X 18 -7; Reddit 13-6.

Various reasons for the non-compliance are given in the article; but the conclusion is that the ban is a flop, if kids and parents are OK with not complying. And, seriously, are the Big Techs going to be frightened by Mother Grant and little old Australia already with a $1 trillion debt? They are rich enough to answer in court a country silly enough to take them on. Big talk and big threats being made by a little woman and a deluded PM in Australia require big money.

You have to acknowledge that the mean girls and others with snouts in trough are champions at virtue signalling and not much else.

If Labor and the Coalition - both keen censors - the so-called eCommissioner having been invented by the Coalition - really wanted to protect children, they would be better employed looking into the child "care" centres; the expense and the allegations of inappropriate behaviour and carelessness with children.

Better still, they could start closing them down and spending the subsidies to encourage mothers to stay at home and look after their own children, and have more of them.

The low birthrate in Australia is not sufficient to replace ourselves, let alone increase the number of real, home grown-up Australians instead of importing aliens who are not required to learn English, let alone assimilate.

Australians are not being replaced not by 'new Australians', but by all sorts of odds and sods merely residents of Australia.

The time is coming when their will no such nationality as Australian.

SBS is pleased to announce that the number of overseas born residents in Australia has risen to 32%.

Indians are the main colonisers. 970,000 of them, not much short of Adelaide's population.

732,000 Chinese.

300,000 and 100,000 respectively more than English speaking, Western values New Zealand.

412, 530 from the Philippines, of all places.

Next in the line of non-Western, NEP countries come Vietnamese, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia.

A big decrease in Brits, of course. Why would they wish to move from one multicultural mess to another one?

Skilled immigration remains a Labor Lie with 656,300 unemployed people as of March this year.

No one is interested in a discussion about a Pommy social media ban, so ttbn tries to turn it into a rabid anti-ethnic bashing exercise. Is he not the one who berates others for "going off topic"!

"A big decrease in Brits" yep, the Lords only know, they're all been banned! Something to do with social media, and the past history of the bad influence they have on the locals when they arrive.

"The Poms have found out that 61% of 12-15 year olds have continued to use the banned sites in Australia."

Anyone who understood social media and the tech savvy of teenagers knew that that this virtue signalling policy from the Albanese government would crash and burn.

When the policy was first implemented, the government and their flying monkey supporters preened themselves on their forward thinking and claimed that the rest of the world was going to follow suit. We aren't seeing those claims any longer.

The only question becomes how long it'll be before the whole thing gets memory-holed and we'll have government sycophants and the media (but I repeat myself) telling us they never thought it would work.

I don't think 6 months indicates anything. Trying to politicise the whole exercise. The truth is these mega rich social media outlets profit from young people, and take no responsibility for the negative impact their organisations are having, everything from depression to suicide.

BTW if 60% are avoiding the ban, then 40% are complying, resulting in 40% less direct negative outcomes. that can't be bad, or are you fools more concerned about the income of people like Zuckerberg than young lives?

The under 16 media ban is not practical.
It reminds me of the abolition of alcohol.
That didn't work either.
But careful control of alcohol does, to some extent.
Perhaps better control of media for those vulnerable youngsters might be the way to go.
Could this be achieved; I wonder?
And are parents enforcing the law?
Apparently not.
So there is little chance the present ban will succeed.
But 40% might benefit.

Latest on under 16 censorship: 85% of 13-15 year olds are getting around the ban one way or another. They are too smart to say how.

The media has had to go to America to get enough kids who self-harmed over social media.

It's not Big Techs fault. They have a product to sell. You don't have to buy.

Parents are the problem; in many cases it's a one-parent/no father problem.

While the loss of children is a tragedy, we are talking about a minority, as always, and normal kids in a normal family situation don't need governments interfering in what they do.

Good to see there has been a marked reduction in cyber-bullying, because of the ban. There is also a strong indication that online predictor behaviour is being curtailed as well. Bullies and predictors will oppose and try to disrupt the ban, whilst they look for new ways to exploit children.

always was just a virtue signalling exercise. Same clowns can't define a woman, happy to have men in dresses sexualising kids in library, boys in girls sports and turn a totally blind eye to sexual abuse in Indigenous communities until extreme cases hit the news. These dei clowns only expertise is in virtue signalling.

All good points, runner. These people are hypocrites and liars.

"These dei clowns only expertise is in virtue signalling.'

mm.. just saw this.

Stella prize 2026: Lee Lai becomes first non-binary person and first graphic novelist to win with Cannon
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/13/stella-prize-2026-lee-lai-cannon-non-binary-graphic-novelist-ntwnfb

I've had just about enough of this
If you want people to call you 'she' at least shave the attempted mustache off your face you horrible disgusting grub of a woman.
And do something with those eyebrows as well they look like caterpillars wandering around on your forehead.

How is it that we're expected to go along with this madness?

While the government doesn't want under 16s to use social media, it's doing its best to brainwash little kids with hard Left ideology.

TV advertising by the government offering 'early learning' to 3 year olds.

Forcing mothers into the workforce and putting even babies into day care when they need their mothers until at least the age of 5 when they start school.

Parents demonstrated outside one of these brain-washing factories today because 3 year olds were being subjected to "pride" (sexual perversion) trash.

Police were sent against the parents. What a nice place Australia has become under the Marxists trying to turn it into a Soviet horror show.

Here is what child exploitation of children on social media is like;

From the Australian Federal Police;

"During its decade-long efforts to detect and stamp out hideous online child sexual exploitation committed by South Australian offenders, a small and dedicated taskforce of AFP and South Australia Police investigators have protected more than 370 children around the world from further abuse. Investigation of South Australian-based offenders, has resulted in the arrest of 654 people locally."

A good case for a social media ban on children, given that in the small populated state of South Australia, police have charged 654 people with child exploration offences.