Mike Males, Principal Investigator, YouthFacts.org| September 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n Teenagers are mass-defying<\/a>\u00a0UK leaders\u2019 dangerous, ill-motivated crusade to restrict and ban young people from social media and expose them to dangerous \u201cage verification\u201d privacy violations, global tech analyst\u00a0The Register<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reports:<\/p>\n \u201cWith the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) now in effect, it was only a matter of time before tech-savvy under-18s figured out how to bypass the rules and regain access to adult content.\u2026 the more obvious workaround was to simply install a VPN [Virtual Private Network] and browse the web as if from another country where such age verification laws don’t apply\u2026 some VPN companies reported a 1,400 percent increase in sign-ups since the OSA came into force.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Another\u00a0global web monitor<\/a>\u00a0quipped of youths\u2019 ease in getting around censorship schemes:\u00a0\u201cAn authoritarian legal apparatus that all understood would never accomplish its stated aims, implemented by lowest-bidding private companies while imposing vast regulatory costs, casually defeated instantly by any kid with an IQ above room temperature. But don’t worry, taxpayer: more can always be spent on being seen to do something.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Some dodges are hilariously easy. The \u201cUse-Their-ID\u201d campaign has already generated 100,000\u00a0imposter drivers\u2019 licenses<\/a>\u00a0(hijacking Prime Minister Kier Starmer\u2019s own ID is a fave) to get around the OSA, UK\u00a0Metro<\/em>\u00a0reports. Evasion strategies, wildly diverse, are rapidly evolving.<\/p>\n What can official nannies endangering the kids they pretend to protect do about it? Not much,\u00a0Register<\/em>\u00a0experts say:\u00a0\u201cBanning VPNs to protect kids? Good luck with that.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Grownups, international corporations, and governments find VPNs highly useful. Adult interests and pleasures are at stake, so restrictions are\u00a0\u201cnot gonna happen.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Shutting down VPN and fake-ID and -facial recognition sites is like Whac-A-Mole.<\/p>\n Meanwhile,\u00a0The Register<\/em>\u00a0reports,\u00a0\u201ca digital petition to repeal the OSA has now reached north of 423,000 e-signatures at the time of writing, a figure well beyond the threshold triggering a Parliamentary debate on the matter.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Some of the OSA\u2019s privacy provisions benefit all users, but its youth restrictions, if not repealed, should just be disobeyed. UK, Australian, US, and other Western lawmakers, under the scam of \u201cprotecting children,\u201d are implementing \u201cage verification\u201d measures so slipshod one would suspect their\u00a0purpose<\/em>\u00a0must be to expose young people to identity and information intrusions by corporate marketers, government spies, and predatory criminals.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most widely adopted methods of digital age verification involve users sharing sensitive information such as facial scans, official ID cards or banking particulars with third-party companies\u2014details which, in the process, inevitably get linked to individual data on pornography consumption,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Scientific American<\/a><\/em>\u00a0warns<\/a>.<\/p>\n So, UK kids and grownups \u2013 just hold your government ID, picture, home address, phone number, email, webpages, identifying numbers, credit card, bank credentials, and facial, retinal, and\/or fingerprint images up to the screen for permanent digital recording by random website and wink-wink \u201cthird party verifier\u201d! Trust us! They would never exploit your info!<\/p>\n What could possibly go wrong?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe UK\u2019s censorship catastrophe is just the beginning,\u201d<\/em>\u00a0warned\u00a0Power User\u2019s Taylor Lorenz<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cEntire forums, websites, communities, and essential journalism is being censored.\u201d Platforms are \u201cclassifying nearly all breaking news footage, war coverage, investigative journalism, political protest material, and information about reproductive and public health as \u2018explicit\u2019 or \u2018harmful\u2019 content, thus blocking anyone under 18 from accessing it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Already, Reddit and other sites are classifying information about Israeli war crimes, protests, and any potential \u201cviolence\u201d as \u201cexplicit content\u201d under-18s are forbidden to access. That broad-based censorship is exactly what officials intend by rushing ahead with vigorous enforcement. The government is\u00a0\u201cworking with regulator Ofcom to implement the act as quickly as possible\u2026 those who wanted to overturn it were \u2018on the side of predators,\u2019\u00a0Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n What a grotesque, upside-down lie. The real reason government regulators like Kyle are negotiating the OSA with government, tech giant, and corporate overlords is to help all gain easier access to millions of teens\u2019 personal information.<\/p>\n Authorities are panicking over teens and social media\u2026 why?<\/strong><\/p>\n Teens provably face far more dangers to their physical and mental health in the real world than online. In the UK, Australia, and especially, the U.S., severe\u00a0drug abuse and family abuses<\/a>\u00a0inflicted by grownups are widespread and soaring. The leading U.S. health agency, the Centers for Disease Control,\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0that parents\u2019 abuses and troubles underlie two-thirds to 90% of teens\u2019 mental health, drug abuse, and suicide problems; social media, just about none.<\/p>\n What, then, is driving exploding official panic over the trivial issue of teens and screens? It\u2019s not teen safety or mental health.<\/p>\n Rather, during the U.S. Congress\u2019s\u00a0TikTok-divestment debate<\/a>, lawmakers\u2019 fury fixated on young people\u2019s audacity to access\u00a0information questioning official pro-Israel<\/a>\u00a0and climate-change-denial dogmas drove the censorship crusade.<\/p>\n \u201cBritish support for Palestine is at an all-time high since October 7, particularly among the younger demographic,\u201d the July 27\u00a0Sunday Times poll<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reports. U.S. polls show similar results. Young people\u2019s anti-Israel views in particular seem to have\u00a0triggered visceral, gut-level rage<\/a>\u00a0in Western officials.<\/p>\n Psychologist Jonathan Haidt, a vocal supporter of Israel who sees young people\u2019s pro-Palestine views as driven by social media, has been\u00a0hardening his stance<\/a>\u00a0against\u00a0any<\/em>\u00a0online access by teenagers. In the past,\u00a0Haidt<\/a>\u00a0acknowledged the internet has many benefits for teens. Lately, coincidentally or not, Haidt is demanding sweeping bans on\u00a0under-16s (and soon, under-18s<\/a>) ever going online for any reason. Haidt has ginned up anti-social-media\u00a0\u201cporn\u201d hysteria and the very \u201cstranger danger\u201d paranoia<\/a>\u00a0he shrugs off in public life to decree that \u201cchildren have no need to connect with strangers\u201d or access disapproved-of information.<\/p>\n Defying and repealing \u201ckids\u2019 online safety\u201d censorship is essential not just to teenagers\u2019 safety and well-being, but democracy\u2019s survival<\/strong><\/p>\n The biggest dangers by far to children and teens are not online or public strangers, but nearby adults and family members. There\u2019s no argument here.<\/p>\n No matter. U.S., U.K., Australian, and other Western authorities have made it clear: they will not even acknowledge, let alone redress, the family abuses that are the real drivers of many teenagers\u2019 poor mental health. Yet, policy makers tirelessly strive to ban teens from online communities, education, and health resources by which\u00a0young people help themselves<\/a>.<\/p>\n