{"id":145923,"date":"2026-06-16T17:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T21:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=145923"},"modified":"2026-06-16T19:18:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T23:18:29","slug":"church-times-social-media-ban-for-under-16s-not-enough-c-of-e-bishops-warn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=145923","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Social-media ban for under-16s \u2018not enough\u2019 C of E Bishops warn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A ban on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/social-media\">social media<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/children\">under-16s<\/a>, announced by the Government this week, will not guarantee child safety online, Bishops and safeguarding specialists have warned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two C of E Bishops \u2014 one in favour of the ban and the other opposed \u2014 nonetheless agreed this week that a ban in isolation was not enough, and that both scrutiny of big tech social media companies and investment in youth services was essential if children are to be protected from harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/children-s-society\">Children\u2019s Society<\/a>&nbsp;warned against letting the tech companies off the hook, while Jim Gamble, the chief executive of INEQE, the safeguarding group currently auditing all Church of England dioceses and cathedrals, said that, while well intentioned, a ban was not practical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2026\/19-june\/news\/uk\/children-s-society-gives-social-media-ban-for-under-16s-a-lukewarm-welcome\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A ban on social media for under-16s, announced by the Government this week, will not guarantee child safety online, Bishops and safeguarding specialists have warned<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/socialmediaban?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#socialmediaban<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/under16s?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#under16s<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hashtag\/churchnews?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#churchnews<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Os2gr5VbRw\">https:\/\/t.co\/Os2gr5VbRw<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Church Times (@ChurchTimes) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ChurchTimes\/status\/2066836808026017934?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 16, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A ban on\u00a0social media\u00a0for\u00a0under-16s, announced by the Government this week, will not guarantee child safety online, Bishops and safeguarding specialists have warned. Two C of E Bishops \u2014 one in favour of the ban and the other opposed \u2014 nonetheless<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=145923\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433,94,101,389,635,199,151,108,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-networking","category-blogging-the-internet","category-children","category-church-of-england-coe","category-coe-bishops","category-england-uk","category-politics-in-general","category-religion-culture","category-teens-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=145923"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145927,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145923\/revisions\/145927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=145923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=145923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=145923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}