June 15, 2026

QUESTION ASKED: Will Keir Starmer’s under-16 social media ban actually work?

Saying under-16s should be banned from certain tech is easy to do. Actually keeping them off it – as the Australian precedent shows, not to mention, hem hem, the situation in my own house – is a bit tougher to enforce. Online harms come in many forms, not all of them through social media, which is in any case hard exactly to define. Is WhatsApp social media? And though we can imagine some sort of passport scan or facial recognition mechanism to verify identities for the big individual sites (with all the privacy/data-harvesting issues that will raise), the mechanism for this curfew is difficult even to imagine. And what, meanwhile, of start-ups, unregulated Android apps, browser-based services and so on that will offer an even less secure environment than the horrors of Meta and TikTok and X?

Pause should certainly be given, I think, by the fact that Ian Russell, the father of a teenage girl who died by suicide after viewing self-harm content online – and who has campaigned for years to hold Big Tech to account for online harm – doesn’t think it’s a good idea. He says it makes more sense to implement existing laws than to use “sledgehammer techniques like bans.”

At present, then, we have a headline, not a policy. Until we learn exactly how it is to be implemented, how enforced and how insulated from the law of unintended consequences, it will remain no more than a headline. But I won’t be alone in thinking: what a pretty headline.

BluSky is currently a bit of Schrödinger’s app at the moment:

However, at BluSky itself, there are reports that it will be banned for under-16s in the UK:

Screenshot

In any case, as Joanna Williams of Spiked writes, “there is little evidence to suggest a social media ban will work. Research from Australia suggests that six out of 10 children aged between 12 and 15 who had accounts on now-banned platforms had maintained access to at least one of their sites of choice. This non-compliance matters, not because teens will be harmed by spending time on TikTok, but because they learn that the law is not to be complied with but to be worked around, mocked and, ultimately, ignored. So why is Keir Starmer backtracking? Partly, because it is easier to acquiesce to the panic-mongers than it is to reason with hysteria. And, like other prime ministers before him, Starmer is discovering that bans are the last resort of politicians with nothing else to offer.”

 

Posted at 3:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

THAT’S WHAT LEFTIES DO: Nurse Bloomberg Is Destroying 3D Printing. “‘No person, firm, partnership, association, or corporation shall sell or deliver any three-dimensional printer in the state of New York unless such printer is equipped with blocking technology that is going to be able to tell if you’re printing a firearm or a firearm part.’ And the definition of 3D printer is so wide. Any machine capable of rendering a three-dimensional object from a digital design file using additive or subtractive manufacturing. This means that dental devices, construction devices, food devices, jewelry devices, all different types of CNC mills are going to be covered under this and they would have to have the spyware installed.”

Posted at 2:46 pm by Stephen Green

THE EUROPEAN MIND CANNOT COMPREHEND:

Posted at 2:44 pm by Glenn Reynolds

NOVEMBER PREVIEW/DON’T GET COCKY:

Posted at 1:28 pm by Stephen Green

BILL MAHER: Vote for the Guy with the Nazi Tattoo!

Politicians are prone to hypocrisy on steroids. So watching Sen. Chuck Schumer, a Jewish Democrat, rally behind a dude with an 18-year-old Nazi tattoo is something to behold but expected.

That faux forgiveness shtick doesn’t have to extend to comedians like Maher. They can call balls and strikes and still look at themselves in the mirror come Monday morning.

Except Maher just let partisanship get in the way of common decency. We expect that from the Kimmels and Stewarts of the world.

Et tu, Maher?

I would still urge the folks in Maine to vote for him, for two reasons…One, we need to restore balance in our government, and a Democratic Senate would help a lot with that.

Why? Maher suggests Platner reflects modern America, so it’s only natural that he not only is allowed to run for office, but he can actually defeat Collins come fall.

He gazed up at the enormous face. Four months it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. Oh cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving totenkopf-tattooed breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Platner.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

I’M EXPECTING AN EARTH-SHATTERING… NOPE, NEVER MIND: NASA X-59 Flies At Mach 1.4 ‘Mission Conditions.’ “The latest flight, the 19th for the Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works-built aircraft since it took to the air for the first time on Oct. 28, marks a key milestone for the program as it works through the initial phase of envelope expansion flight testing. The aircraft is next due to begin an acoustic validation phase to confirm its slender shape and long nose work as designed to produce a low intensity, sine-wave-shaped sonic boom.”

Posted at 12:42 pm by Stephen Green

YOU WILL BE MADE TO CARE: On Pride Night, some Giants add reference to Bible verse to hat.

On Pride Night at Oracle Park, with the San Francisco Giants wearing special edition hats to represent the LGBTQ+ community, multiple players wrote Bible verses next to the team’s rainbow logo, while one chose to forgo wearing the cap entirely.

Starting pitcher Landen Roupp and reliever JT Brubaker wrote the Bible verse Genesis 9:12-16 on the caps they wore Friday night, the same passage that has been displayed by other players on their Pride Night hats during games.

“Kind of what the verse says, the rainbow is a symbol of God’s covenant to us and us as believers stand firm in that,” Roupp said.

Former Giants shortstop Nick Ahmed wrote the verse on his hat in 2024, while retired Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw inscribed the same verse on his hat last year.

On Friday, reliever Sam Hentges opted out of wearing the pride hat, instead donning San Francisco’s usual black and orange cap.

You don’t want to wear the ribbon? You must wear the ribbon!

UPDATE:

Posted at 12:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

LEFTIST TEARS:

Well, suck it, lefties.

He’s right about the US left having zero brain power, though, I gotta give him that.

UPDATE: Take the W, people.

Posted at 12:02 pm by Glenn Reynolds

OLD AND BUSTED: The Roku Box.

The New Hotness? The Roku-Fox: Fox to buy streaming pioneer Roku in a $22 billion deal.

Fox Corp. has agreed to buy the streaming pioneer Roku in a cash-and-stock deal valued at approximately $22 billion, including debt.

Roku will continue to be run as an open, partner-friendly platform, the companies said Monday, and there appears to be no immediate changes that customers will see. Fox and Roku said that the combined company will become the third-largest player in U.S. television by share of viewing.

Media reports had surfaced on Friday that Roku was looking at its strategic options, including a possible sale. Speculation was rampant as to which companies might be interested in an acquisition. Aside from Fox, names being tossed about as potential buyers included Netflix, Amazon, Comcast and Disney.

The deal will give Fox access to more than 100 million global households, along with the Roku channel and its first-party data. Fox oversees a massive sports, news and entertainment network, as well as Tubi, which it acquired in 2020.

Roku founder Anthony Wood had initially worked within Netflix in the early 2000s as that company attempted to make the seismic shift from renting DVDs, to streaming.

While technologically inevitable, that’s worked out about as well for Hollywood as the death of CDs did for the music industry: The death of DVDs and how it has damaged Hollywood.

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll

IT SHOULDN’T BE DIFFICULT TO SAY, “I’M AGAINST GIRLS GETTING RAPED”:

Posted at 11:55 am by Stephen Green

THANKS, FELLAS: IDF says it killed Hezbollah commander tied to 2007 murder of US soldiers.

The IDF said Sunday that it killed senior Hezbollah commander Ali Musa Daqduq in a precise strike south of the Litani River in southern Lebanon over the weekend.

According to the military, Daqduq was a senior Hezbollah commander and a veteran source of operational knowledge within the terrorist organization, having held a series of senior posts over the years.

The IDF said that in recent years, Daqduq played a central role in advancing terrorist attacks and combat operations against Israel and IDF soldiers, including operational planning along the Lebanon border.

Israel can’t afford to slack off against Hezbollah now.

Posted at 11:40 am by Stephen Green