Dear all, when we were recently discussing a mobile phone ban for young people, we also heard from Karin, who, speaking from personal experience, supports a social media ban for under-14s. This is because a diss track was uploaded to YouTube about her son when he was in Year 3 – a video specifically aimed at mocking a person.
Dear reader, what is your view on a social media ban for under-14s?
I’m definitely in favour of a ban. However, I see the problem in its implementation, and even more so in enforcing the ban. Strictly speaking, according to the terms and conditions, probably not a single mainstream social media platform is officially permitted for 14-year-olds. And yet, enough children and teenagers now have access to TikTok, Instagram and other platforms. Ultimately, even WhatsApp has an age restriction. But it’s established as a communication app in such a way that this isn’t even questioned. You might just change the age restriction on your mobile and you can still download the app anyway.
Has your attitude towards this issue changed over the years? If so, how?
Yes, I’ve definitely become more critical. Social media has, not least in recent years, developed in many respects into – let’s call it – ‘unsocial media’. The tone is often harsh. People are quicker to attack one another than in real life. Misinformation is spread. And children are left unprotected on these platforms, at the mercy of adults. Is that what you want for your child? I certainly don’t want that for mine.
What restrictions for children do you think would be sensible?
Above all, the restrictions on content. That there really is a kind of filter that doesn’t expose children to all information. And also the drastic restriction on communication. So that children can’t simply be contacted by just anyone.
Do you think people would actually stick to bans or restrictions? Or are you more concerned with the signal it sends: that this isn’t really suitable for younger people yet?
I think the people who are already taking a critical look at the issue today and who welcome the ban would certainly stick to it. The fear is rather that there aren’t that many of them.
At the moment, it’s only about a social media ban, not an internet ban, so kids can still watch violent or sexual videos if they want to…
Fundamentally, the internet isn’t all bad in itself. Whereas back in my school days I used to have to dig out my parents’ old encyclopaedia set for my first presentations, today we have search engines and an almost endless supply of knowledge. A complete internet ban is probably even harder to implement.
Do you also find young people’s media behaviour problematic for social life?
Yes, definitely. We were at the indoor swimming pool for a competition last weekend. The athletes are all completely glued to their mobile phones. I’ve given up packing card games for my son myself. Nobody plays with him anyway, and in the end he just ends up hanging around with the others, staring at their mobiles. Two children from another club were sitting next to us in the stands with their Funny Pocket Books. I found it sad that you even notice something like that, when there are children who do other things besides just looking at their phones. Yes, a day at the swimming pool is long, but there are other ways to keep yourself occupied than just using a small device.
And not only that, you’ve also experienced something far more serious…
At school, we’ve now had a case where a classmate made a ‘diss track’ about our son a year ago. Naming him specifically. Uploaded quite officially to YouTube. The children were in Year 3 at the time the video was uploaded.
How did you find out about the diss track, how did your son cope, and how did you, as a mother, deal with it?
To be honest, our son told us about it a year ago. Given the age of the boys mentioned earlier, my husband and I didn’t take it seriously and basically told him it was just his classmate talking nonsense.
But this boy actually does have a YouTube channel. Other classmates apparently found out about this channel recently, watched the video and teased our son about it. As he doesn’t have YouTube himself – because we’ve severely restricted his mobile phone using Family Link – he told the boys, who are one or two years older, about it in the changing room during training. They watched it with him, thought the video was pretty silly and even gave it a thumbs-down. He told me this in the car and I was completely taken aback.
Were there any consequences? Has everything been sorted out now?
My first instinct was to send the boy’s mother the link to the video and write that my son was being named and insulted in it, and that it had to be removed immediately. I then made a copy using my mobile’s screen recorder, just to be on the safe side.
The mother’s reaction was essentially that I shouldn’t make such a fuss, as the video had, after all, been online for a year. She said she would delete it personally now, but didn’t believe my child’s full name had been mentioned and that there were plenty of other people with his first name. I was truly stunned that she played it down like that and hadn’t even watched it. The name is mentioned twice.
What did the school say?
We reported it to the class teacher and the school management. The class teacher sought a meeting with the boys the very next day. The school management, like a lawyer friend of mine, advised us to report it to the police or the child welfare services. If a child of that age has such uncontrolled access to, for example, YouTube, that probably already constitutes a breach of the duty of supervision, as YouTube is only permitted from the age of 16.
We also informed the coaches, just to be on the safe side. Children can be cruel at times, and it could well have happened that the boys he’d told might have found the video silly one moment, only to use it to tease him the next. We had a chat with the kids too, but they were very caring and even asked whether we parents were aware of the situation.
What would your appeal be as a mother?
A much stricter line needs to be taken when it comes to monitoring. How can an 8-year-old at the time upload something like that and run a YouTube channel with further videos entirely on his own? We have reported the channel. Unfortunately, nothing has happened on YouTube’s part so far. There isn’t even a reporting option for ‘person is a minor’.
But the big questions are, of course: Who is ultimately supposed to monitor this? What are the consequences for parents who don’t comply? I don’t have an answer to that either.
