Kit Knightly – Off-Guardian Nov 10, 2026
he UK’s so-called “social media ban” hasn’t even come into force yet, and already its remit is set to spread beyond social media.
We previously reported that OfCom – the UK’s official censorship office – have announced that facial scans aren’t accurate enough to enforce the ban, and adults hoping to prove they are over 16 may need to use their photo ID.
Well now Lisa Nandy, the UK’s “Culture Secretary” – named in the ironic tradition of Orwell’s “Ministry of Truth” – has told the media that the government is going to include non-social media sites in the ban.
The BBC reports:
Government ‘looking seriously’ at banning under-16s from Vinted and eBay
The concern is that – allegedly – the direct messaging available between sellers and customers on second-hand selling services is enabling “grooming”.
So the ban for under 16s is going to be extended to those platforms as well.
Of course, just as with the “social media ban”, the more correct description would be “requiring ID verification from everyone”.
This was always going to happen.
Once the “social media ban” is in place to “protect children”, you have a wedge in the door that can widen in two directions – either new “dangers” to children can be discovered, or you can broaden the definition of “social media”.
The UK government has already gone both ways.
Let us not forget what “Culture Secretary” Lisa Nandy said in her speech at the Labour Party conference last month:
[We] must be a very active interventionist state, policing and regulating the online space so that people are safe.”
We’re well on our way there.
The social media ban already exists alongside other new regulations limiting online chats in multiplayer games (unless you verify your ID), “digital curfews” for 16 or 17 year-olds, age gating pornography, or suggested measures like device-level “nudity detection” – which would be, in reality, mandatory software scanning every image you look at and every photo you take, or even TRY to take, in real time.
The number of digital services, shops or websites for which all British citizens will be required to supply their ID is growing.
We’re now adding eBay, Vinted, DePop and Facebook Marketplace to that list.
From there it will be Amazon, or Etsy, or Temu. Then Deliveroo, JustEat, UberEats or any online shopping at all.
Then any online activity.
Then internet access in general.
…unless you sign up to the governments new app to verify your age.
The digital ID beast is slouching toward Bethlehem, to be born.