A leak claims the British government is considering legislating to ban the sale of smartphones to under-16s has split the right between conservatives and libertarians, torn between trying to manage the increasingly apparent damage caused by new technology or stepping back and letting the market decide.
“As conservatives know, not all change is progress”, says a prominent Tory MP of the damage being done to a generation of young people by unfettered access to social media as claims emerge the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is working on a ban on selling smartphones to children under the age of 16. The government, for its part, offered a “non-denial” to the reported leak, saying only they would not comment on speculation, but that “Our commitment to making the UK the safest place to be a child online is unwavering”.Naturally, the law could be easily circumvented, and most phones for children are already bought by their parents anyway. But as some observers in favour of the change note, the law is a valuable tool for building new norms and that smartphone usage is not appropriate for developing minds and the government could back that position by statut