Keyword – Technology
Trefwoorden – AI (artificial intelligence), Instagram, Technology, Meta, Computing, Advertising, Advertising Standards Authority, Media, Consumer affairs, Money
Title – Brands using AI-generated influencers to promote products on social media | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/sarah-marsh
Link – Brands using AI-generated influencers to promote products on social media | AI (artificial intelligence) | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T06:00:23.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jun/21/brands-using-ai-generated-influencers-to-promote-products-on-social-media

Brands promoting their products online are quietly deploying AI-generated influencers on social media, an investigation has found, prompting calls for greater transparency.

The findings suggest companies are increasingly turning to AI-generated content that purports to show genuine customer experiences while giving no obvious indication that the people featured are not real.

The Guardian has also found that some content creators making AI influencer content are being asked to sign non-disclosure agreements so they cannot talk about their work.

There are no specific rules requiring brands to tell consumers when advertising content has been created using AI. In the EU, new rules under the Artificial Intelligence Act will begin applying in August, requiring AI-generated or manipulated content such as deepfake images, audio and video to be clearly labelled. The legislation will not apply in the UK.

The consumer group Which? said that customers should be clearly informed when promotional content features AI-generated influencers rather than real people.

One example of a business appearing to use this content on Instagram includes a photo app called Once, which allows people’s phones to create disposable camera-style photographs for events. According to analysis by Reality Defenders, a cybersecurity company specialising in deepfake detection, the brand has likely used AI-generated influencers in its promotion.

Several videos on Instagram show a bride crying and saying she was pleased to have used the Once app at her wedding. In one she says: “Everyone expected a no-phone wedding, so I gave them cameras instead.” The post was captioned, “The app I used is called @oncefilmapp.”

When asked about this, Once did not respond to a request for a comment.

In another video a woman who appears to be AI generated says in a caption on the screen: “I could kiss the interior designer who showed me this.” She then goes on to show herself using the Maket app, which uses AI to design and plan housing projects.

Maket said: “AI-generated influencers have been one of several ways for us to test creative concepts and marketing hooks at a small scale before investing in broader campaigns. This is not a core part of our marketing strategy, but rather an experiment to better understand what resonates with audiences across channels, including influencer, social media and email campaigns.”

A fashion brand called Ashle, a Dubai-based business, posted a photograph appearing to show a woman wearing its clothes at a restaurant. The woman appears to have an extra finger. After being approached by the Guardian to ask about the use of AI influencers, the brand deleted photographs from its social media page.

A spokesperson for Ashle said: “To clarify, all Ashle pieces are real garments that are handmade to order. We are not selling AI-generated products. Some early marketing imagery utilised AI during our initial launch phase to showcase designs.

“The images that have been removed were taken down because those particular designs are no longer part of the collection, not because they were AI-generated.”

Lisa Barber, editor of Which? Tech, said: “Our recent investigation into deepfakes on social media found that a worrying 70% of people are unable to correctly identify all the real and fake videos we showed them, meaning consumers could be frequently being misled by AI-generated content and becoming targets for scammers.

“It is concerning that consumers are not able to trust the content they are seeing online. Companies must be transparent when content has been created using AI, particularly if AI-generated influencers are appearing in the content.”

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) said there was nothing in its rules that explicitly prohibits brands from posting AI-generated promotional content without disclosing it.

“There’s nothing in our rules that prohibits this and there are no disclosure rules for AI content labelling,” an ASA spokesperson said. “The content would, of course, still need to stick to the advertising rules. For example, it mustn’t be misleading and it must be socially responsible.”

The regulator said the use of AI itself is not the issue it would assess when considering complaints.

“That would depend on whether the use of AI results in the consumer being given a misleading impression of the product being advertised,” the spokesperson said. “Ultimately, the issue we would look at is whether the ad itself is misleading, rather than the use of AI being inherently problematic.”

Clarissa Mansbridge, a former celebrity manager who has previously worked with Katie Price, creates images of AI influencers for brands as part of her Mia Metaverse portfolio. She says brands approach her because she has the technical ability to create hyperrealistic, aspirational digital humans.

Brands can hire Mansbridge to create entirely new AI avatars that are used for user-generated content (UGC) – a form of content paid for by brands where humans review their products. For example, a beauty company may commission a realistic-looking video of an anonymous 20-year-old applying sunscreen beside a pool in Bali. The brand can then post the content directly on its own social channels, making it appear as though it was submitted by a real influencer.

“I’m going to say about 40% to 60% of the content out there from some of the big brands is actually being made through AI, but a lot of the creators are under NDA,” Mansbridge said.

“If you sign with a brand, they’ll make you sign an NDA saying you can’t talk about the fact they’re using [AI], because consumer trust is still being built. I call it plausible deniability.”

Mansbridge said brands are increasingly attracted by the lower costs associated with AI-generated content.

“Brands want high-end photography, but they don’t want to pay $20,000 to $70,000 for a traditional photoshoot,” she said. “Unfortunately, human influencers killed the market for themselves. Brands are moving to AI to cut out issues like bad press, personal opinions, hourly rates and photographers.”

Mansbridge said the paid “UGC boom” started around three years ago, “when influencers were incredibly smart about it. They noticed brands were desperate for content that looked like real, everyday people using their products, so they started pitching paid content framed in that style. Brands loved it and paid for it.”

She added: “The authenticity of UGC was always about resonance, not [about] who made it. If the content reflects a real consumer truth about the product, it connects. AI just gives brands a smarter, more scalable way to get there.”

The use of AI-generated content that mimics authentic customer experiences is also being actively marketed to businesses.

Leeds-based artist Zac Rossiter said he was recently approached by a marketing agency promising to help boost sales. In an email seen by the Guardian, the agency wrote: “Pick one of your products. I’m thinking your artwork prints, but it’s up to you. We will use our AI studio to generate you a complimentary piece of ad creative for it, yours to keep.”

The agency said it wanted to create an AI-generated unboxing video featuring one of Rossiter’s products. Unboxing videos, in which customers open and react to products on camera, have become a popular form of user-generated content because they are often viewed by consumers as authentic recommendations.

Rossiter declined the offer. “I would never work with an agency that used fake AI unboxing videos over actual, real people,” he said.

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Andy Burnham, Makerfield byelection, Politics, UK news, Keir Starmer, Nigel Farage
Title – Andy Burnham has shown that he can win. But can he govern Britain? | Gaby Hinsliff | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/gabyhinsliff
Link – Andy Burnham has shown that he can win. But can he govern Britain? | Gaby Hinsliff | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T06:00:01.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/20/andy-burnham-britain-makerfield-mp

B y the end, it had become less a byelection, more a mythical quest. Whoever could draw the sword from Makerfield’s stone – or more prosaically, beat Reform in a seat where it practically swept the board in last month’s local elections – would claim the divine right to rule the Labour party. And lo, on Friday morning, Andy Burnham became the chosen one.

He carries the magic shield of not being from Westminster – though that won’t last, obviously – plus the easy warmth with people that Keir Starmer lacks, and the rare ability to generate excitement in politics. Reform is beatable, and the sun shines brighter for knowing that. A third successive defeat for Nigel Farage in a winnable byelection, after losing Caerphilly to Plaid Cymru and Gorton and Denton to the Greens, suggests a trend, not a fluke.

Less obviously, Burnham’s good-natured campaign also helped the country see another side of places like Makerfield, beyond the day drinkers furnishing visiting journalists with blood-curdling quotes; a side where the Reform candidate’s sexist comments still hurt him and people with tough lives might still give a mainstream politician a chance. Another future is still possible. But only if Burnham shows he can genuinely govern as well as win.

For Starmer was a winner two summers ago, swept to victory on similarly heady but vague promises of change – and look at him now. The last loyalists began peeling away shortly after John Healey’s shock resignation as defence secretary, over yet another prime ministerial failure to take a decision. It’s over for Starmer, essentially. Barring a currently unlikely rush among Labour MPs to embrace Wes Streeting, the question now is how to bridge the gap until Burnham is ready. For turning the kind of post-industrial, leftwing populism that worked in Makerfield into a coherent national project will take some work.

Despite the snark about his supposed flip-flopping, Burnham’s values haven’t changed since I first got to know him professionally, nearly 30 years ago. He’s a small-town lad from a close-knit Catholic family , who married his university girlfriend and still has something of the wide-eyed altar boy about him. Though his faith has lapsed – he consistently votes pro-choice and pro-LGBTQ+ rights – the church shaped his family’s sense of doing right by others and provided a childhood sense of security, alongside his other religions of football and music. It was as a young cabinet minister, in 2009, that he first properly channelled all that into politics, when the shock of being booed on the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster jolted Burnham into publicly battling for an inquiry.

But if his roots matter, he also has the chameleon qualities and slightly chippy confidence of the state-school-to-Cambridge kid who had to learn to fit into places he didn’t seemingly belong. His great strength is his empathy: he’s unusually sensitive to people’s underlying emotions – and unafraid of mirroring them. His instinctive gut reaction during the pandemic , to Manchester being repeatedly pushed back into restrictions, went viral because it nailed the feeling of being punished for higher Covid rates driven by inequalities and forces that people felt powerless to control. If other politicians find him ideologically hard to read, the public doesn’t.

That same empathy, however, means he struggles to say no. Every rival Labour faction sees something to like in Burnham, from his Blue Labour -tinged communitarianism to his enthusiasm for electoral reform or his socialist embrace of bringing public services into public control (which doesn’t stop him retrospectively defending the private finance initiative ). But they also all see chances to change his mind. That leaves an awful lot of cooks now jostling to stir the broth.

In the north, he resolved the contradictions through what he called a politics of place, reliant on deeply knowing your community – from cosmopolitan central Manchester, through its more conservative suburbs to struggling peripheral towns – and setting aside partisan differences in order to rebuild a sense of pride and belonging. If he could somehow translate this benign form of identity politics from Manchester to Britain at large, it would be an extraordinary achievement. But for now, that’s a superhuman task lacking a detailed plan. Having campaigned literally in poetry – his closing campaign video was a moving recital of Lemn Sissay’s elegiac Anthem of the North , originally written for Newcastle – he needs a summer of knuckling down to the small print.

Where exactly does he stand on immigration? In Makerfield, he backed Shabana Mahmood’s hardline reforms . But a Labour revolt is already brewing against them, with Angela Rayner campaigning particularly vociferously against the policy of making it harder for people who came to the UK to work as carers to settle permanently. Does Burnham, whose genuine desire to fix social care dates back to unfinished business as health secretary in the Brown government, really want to drive migrant care workers out of an already threadbare system? What’s his answer to his rival Streeting’s argument that Labour shouldn’t be afraid of making the positive case for immigration?

Big questions still loom, meanwhile, over borrowing, tax, spending on welfare and defence versus net zero – especially if Ed Miliband becomes chancellor – and what exactly “business-friendly socialism” means for, say, regulating big tech. Does Burnham mean what he says about sticking to Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules and tax pledges , and if so, what room does he realistically have left for radicalism? Though taking public control of transport, water and energy was Burnham’s most popular policy in Makerfield, Starmer is already renationalising the railways and hinting at a possible takeover of Thames Water for precious little electoral reward – perhaps because people haven’t yet felt the difference in their pockets.

Burnham’s operation is relaxed and freewheeling, and he remains suspicious of attempts to impose more order now. But while in Manchester he has relied on a small, trusted circle to hammer out the detail of his big ideas, in Downing Street he’d have to manage experienced cabinet members with agendas of their own, plus a Whitehall machine requiring crystal clear direction to deliver. He’ll need help rebuilding bridges with MPs, too, as he shifts from years of blaming Westminster for not getting it to being the one that everyone outside Westminster blames.

Nobody wants to rain on this parade of hope. But a frictionless coronation in which the party politely ducks awkward questions will ultimately do Burnham no favours. Contest or no contest, Labour must find ways of stress-testing his ideas over summer, plugging holes that might otherwise be painfully exposed in office. And then crucially, come September, it must do its level best to make what’s left work. Andy Burnham may just have earned Labour a second hearing. Squander that chance, and there won’t be a third.

Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – Spain, World Cup 2026, Cape Verde, World Cup, Football, Sport
Title – ‘Stung’ Spain have digested shock start but know repeat is not an option | Spain | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/sidlowe
Link – ‘Stung’ Spain have digested shock start but know repeat is not an option | Spain | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T04:00:21.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/21/stung-spain-have-digested-shock-start-but-know-repeat-is-not-an-option

C ape Verde are not the only ones to have kept Spain out at this World Cup. Turns out it was even harder to get past security on the gate of the team hotel in downtown Chattanooga. Two days after the 0-0 draw in their opener , Luis de la Fuente gave his players the day off, a chance to clear their heads and leave the disappointment behind. Lamine Yamal went to Nashville, Dani Olmo headed for Hamilton Place mall and Rodri strolled the Tennessee river with his partner. When Borja Iglesias got back before the 9pm curfew, they didn’t recognise him and wouldn’t let him in.

“It was funny,” Iglesias said, standing at the side of the pitch at Kennesaw State University 30 miles north-west of Atlanta on Saturday, moments before the selección ’s final session in preparation for their second game. “It happens to me in Spain , so how could it not happen here? I didn’t have the accreditation with me so I have to wait for someone to come and get me. Lamine laughed at me: ‘I love it, they didn’t let you in.’ The good thing is I told a couple of them and they said it had happened to them before too.”

It can’t happen again. Up next for Spain are Saudi Arabia back in Atlanta on Sunday and this time they have to find a way through. “I’m not sure it’s fair to say that the forwards have to ‘improve’, but yes, we need goals,” Iglesias said. “We had various chances and didn’t score; other times you only get one chance and you do score. So, be calm. I have seen them train and there’s no problem. They will go in next time, for sure.”

And then things will be different. “If we had scored one, the game would have changed,” Martín Zubimendi said. Immediately after the game, De la Fuente had offered a simple analysis: when the ball doesn’t want to go in it doesn’t want to go in, he insisted. Spain had racked up 27 shots, after all. Ferran Torres had hit the bar and seen another clear opportunity saved. Vozinha, the 40-year-old goalkeeper who stopped that, saved six more and was named the man of the match . “There’s nothing to reproach the team for,” Rodri said. “We generated chances but couldn’t put it away; the good thing is they created almost nothing.”

Few others saw the good in the game, especially not from the outside. Cape Verde were supposed to be easy and with this format no one entertained the possibility of Spain being knocked out anyway, which may have been part of the problem. “Maybe the fact that it was the first game conditioned things,” De la Fuente conceded. The following day Mikel Merino had talked about a “mourning” ; it was a metaphor, he insisted, but it had hurt. “The players are stung, and tomorrow will be different for sure,” said De la Fuente.

And yet, he said, there were “zero doubts”; Spain must “insist on the same idea”. Yet the conclusion that the only thing missing was a finish did not entirely convince. In the opening half an hour, Mikel Oyarzabal, the centre-forward, did not get a single touch. In that period, six players made more passes than Pedri, who is supposed to be the playmaker but who appeared too advanced, his energy expended chasing down defenders while the game was played behind him instead of in front of him. With Gavi and Torres on the wings, what width there was came from the full-backs.

Which leads to the other element which has occupied everyone – probably too much. The absence of Lamine Yamal until 71 minutes has eclipsed almost everything else in a national team developing a dependency that goes beyond the pitch. An 18-year-old is cast as Spain’s hope and salvation, almost as their everything. Unable to play since April with a hamstring injury, De la Fuente had said Lamine Yamal was in “perfect” condition before facing Cape Verde and that the way the game went would decide when he was put on but that claim was disproved by how long the coach waited and the conversations with the medical staff that preceded the winger’s introduction. Nico Williams, also returning from injury, got just nine minutes. “The freshness of Lamine and Nico is what it is,” De la Fuente said then.

“The good news is that Lamine is back,” he says now. The important questions are how many minutes Lamine Yamal can play against Saudi Arabia, and which minutes; De la Fuente seemed to imply that he would prefer the second 45, which is where games are won, to the first 45. But on the eve of the match the numbers he threw out were “55, 58, 63”.

“We would be in a better mood if we had won but today we have taken our run to 32 games unbeaten,” De la Fuente said then; six days on, the mood is better still, a sense if anything that the negative reaction to their opening game was a bit much, that the critics had got carried away, that it’s not so bad. And, importantly, that they would show those critics how wrong they were. There was that word: “stung”. De la Fuente said: “There’s no feeling of pressure, no sense of emergency. Sometimes the criticism motivates you and this is a generation of players that is very competitive. Players see [what’s said].”

He added: “There is a moment when it stops being about tactics. This team has heart and always responds.”

They are not going to let it divide them, certainly: this is a close group, they keep saying. On Saturday, Laporte was talking about playing Fortnite with the kids, who enjoy winding him up. And it is just one game, which they didn’t even lose. Uruguay’s draw that same night also meant that they don’t even have a deficit to make up.

“We were sad those first 24 hours but we have turned it around now,” Zubimendi said on Saturday. He also rejected suggestions that Spain’s circulation of the ball had been slow – “I’m surprised because if this midfield has a characteristic quality it’s not exactly that it slows the game down” – and defended Rodri from unexpected criticism, asking: “What am I even supposed to say to that?”

Zubimendi added: “It was not a brilliant game but nor was it really bad: there are things we can take from it. We have to come up with improvements, especially that fluidity, that freshness in the final third which I think is going to be the key. I don’t think it’s a physical problem, I think it’s more that touch of precision. The day after wasn’t easy but that shows we care, that we’re pissed off at not winning, and that we feel the need to win. Our confidence has not dropped; we have walked a long path together and we trust each other to turn this around.”

This time, they can’t let anyone stop them. “We were annoyed, which is the way it should be,” Laporte said. “But it’s also true that we are unbeaten in 32. We have the ambition and the confidence to look to the next game, think positively, and try to win, as we always to. To say: ‘We’re here.’”

Keyword – Travel
Trefwoorden – Amalfi coast holidays, Public transport trips, Travel, Italy holidays, Europe holidays
Title – Salerno: the charming and affordable gateway to Italy’s Amalfi coast | Amalfi coast holidays | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessica-furseth
Link – Salerno: the charming and affordable gateway to Italy’s Amalfi coast | Amalfi coast holidays | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T06:00:02.000Z
Category – Lifestyle
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/jun/20/italy-salerno-affordable-budget-amalfi-coast-train-ferry

T he ferry from Salerno to Amalfi town was set to take about 35 minutes, and we were debating whether to risk the windswept top deck, fearful our packed lunches might fly into the Tyrrhenian Sea. (My father and I were taking a pragmatic approach on our Italian holiday, opting for light midday meals to save space for the primo and secondo courses at dinner, and ample lemony desserts.)

As our ferry sped across glittering water, we admired the views as the Amalfi coast unfolded, incandescent with charm. But we could also see the crawling traffic on the narrow roads that cling to the cliffs. That could have been us, up there in one of those toy-sized rental cars, squeezed between a tourist coach and a fed-up local leaning on their horn. Thankfully, we were on a boat instead, sea breeze in hair and coffee in hand.

The Amalfi coast has a reputation that draws tourists from all over the world. It seems everybody wants to see this string of sorbet-coloured towns, to wander the narrow streets where houses climb the hills like stacked blocks, and to sip limoncello while gazing out across the impossibly bright, blue waters. But as eager as I had been to experience these famous graces, the idea of white-knuckling it on hairpin turns in a Fiat 500, inches from certain ruin, didn’t seem like my idea of fun. That’s when an Italian friend gave me some priceless advice: stay in Salerno – it’s a nice town with good restaurants, and you can do all your excursions via public transport from there.

Salerno is tucked just under the Sorrentine peninsula and about half an hour south of Naples on the fast train. It’s an ideal base for jumping on trains to inland attractions such as Pompeii and Paestum, but also for catching ferries to every destination along the Amalfi coast, as well as Capri and Sicily. What’s more, Salerno is a more affordable base than the honeypot towns of Positano or Ravello, where accommodation and restaurant prices are around double what you’d pay here.

Originally a Roman colony, Salerno was reshaped by the Normans in the 11th century. It’s a pleasant and relaxed town to wander, its wide and luxurious promenade dotted with palm trees, benches and street performers. What it lacks in Amalfi glamour, it makes up for with a more authentic tableau of local Italian life. (After a day of eating overpriced ice-cream from hollowed-out Amalfi lemons, we found Salerno’s lack of performance refreshing.)

Dad and I got a holiday rental on the edge of the historic centre, near Salerno Cathedral , which houses the relics of Saint Matthew. We wandered in one morning and were surprised to find that although the duomo is on the modest side, the crypt is a real showstopper, with intricate marble details from top to bottom. The town is also home to the Schola Medica Salernitana , which dates back to the 9th century and was the pre-eminent source of medical knowledge in its heyday, before closing in 1811. Today, the adjacent Garden of Minerva botanical terrace is the city’s most picturesque attraction. Its organising principle is the four humours of man (the Ancient Greeks theorised that our temperament and health are dictated by a balance of blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile). That’s certainly something to think about while wandering the gardens, where the plants are labelled according to which “mood” they affect.

But Salerno is all about the food for me, most notably the glistening, black squid ink pasta dish I ate at La Botte Pazza and still salivate over months later. The menu, scribbled on a tiled wall, described the dish simply as spaghetti mare . The wine came out of taps in the wall, and the buzzy atmosphere only got louder as the evening progressed. The bonhomie was all the more welcome after spending the day wandering among the ghosts of Pompeii (40 minutes up the coast by train), which was buried in ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted nearly 2,000 years ago.

Another worthwhile rail excursion is to Vietri sul Mare – the first town in the string of pearls that make up the Amalfi coast, and the only one that can be reached by train. We hopped on an eight-minute service out of Salerno for a wander through the town famous for its colourful ceramics, but also because I wanted to swim – Salerno’s seafront has a nice promenade, but beach lovers are left wanting.

You can swim in Amalfi town too, but the beach in this more famous spot was already getting busy when we visited in late March. As much as I enjoyed Amalfi, I felt relieved to be there early in the season – its narrow streets weren’t built for crowds.

Vietri sul Mare is sleepy in comparison, and I was thrilled to find a peaceful stretch of sand, where I changed quickly under the arches before running in for a bracing dip in the turquoise water.

For Dad, who takes a dim view of anyone who goes in the sea in March, Paestum was more of a highlight. After speeding south for about half an hour, the train dropped us off in the middle of nowhere, by a gravel road that promised a 10-minute walk to the ruins of the once-great Greek city. We were in our element now – at Paestum, visitors can wander about freely as the approximately 27-hectare (66 acre) site unfolds, with the occasional noticeboard sharing a story of what used to be here, but mostly leaving it to your imagination.

Paestum’s crown jewels are the three temples looming large and golden in the landscape; they are about 2,500 years old yet very well preserved. Dad was pleased to find a working model of Archimedes’ screw, an ancient hydraulic tool for elevating water, while I was tickled by the Tomb of the Diver, with its fresco of a gentleman diving into a pool, starkers.

Osteria Canali gave us our last meal in Salerno, and again we had the pleasure of being surrounded by local people in an inviting neighbourhood taverna. The regional menu was rich with aubergine and mozzarella, and then came the main course of baccalà – a piece of white fish with figs, wrapped in paper and simmering in its own juices. More creamy Amalfi lemon desserts to finish, of course, and we figured we should try the limoncello as well – when south of Rome, right? But as much as I like a citrus tang, this was finally too much lemon for me.

Choosing Salerno as our base opened up a different side of the Amalfi coast, allowing us to come and go by boat and train without the stress of traffic jams and impossible parking situations. We only missed a train once, but another came along half an hour later, and while we waited there was nothing to worry about except where to go for ice-cream.

Intercity trains run from Naples Central to Salerno and take about 35 minutes (€9.50). Regional trains from Salerno central take about 40 minutes to Pompeii ( €2.80); 30 minutes to Paestum ( €3.40); and eight minutes to Vietri sul Mare (€1.40). Timetables at trenitalia.com . Several ferry companies run year-round services from Salerno to the towns along the Amalfi coast. The Travelmar passenger ferry sails direct to Amalfi town from Salerno’s Concordia terminal ( 35 minutes , €26 return) . Plan your journey with FerryHopper

Keyword – Football
Trefwoorden – World Cup 2026, Japan, Tunisia football team, World Cup, Football, Sport
Title – Ueda inspires Japan to eliminate Tunisia in landmark 1,000th World Cup match | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jonathanwilson
Link – Ueda inspires Japan to eliminate Tunisia in landmark 1,000th World Cup match | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T06:22:47.000Z
Category – Sport
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jun/21/japan-tunisia-world-cup-group-f-match-report

Perhaps the manager wasn’t the problem after all. Tunisia sacked Sabri Lamouchi after last week’s 5-1 defeat to Sweden, appointing Hervé Renard as their seventh manager since qualifying began. But it turned out a diffident side lacking defensive conviction are a diffident side lacking defensive conviction whoever has to do the press conferences. Tunisia were well beaten by a Japan side inspired by the Feyenoord centre-forward Ayase Ueda, who scored twice and led the line with intelligence and imagination.

Renard had only three days with his players. He may have performed heroics to win the Africa Cup of Nations with Zambia in 2012 and three years later become the first manager to win two Cups of Nations with different teams as he ended Côte d’Ivoire’s 23-year trophy drought. But he is not, as he has stressed, “a magician”.

Attempts to break into the mainstream of French football with Sochaux, Lille and the France women’s team have faltered and the 57-year-old seems to have accepted that his role now is with aspirant nations in Africa and the Middle East rather than at the apex of the European game. Renard still wears his trademark white shirt but whatever luck it may once have brought seems to have worn off. Not that this mess could, in any realistic sense, be blamed on Renard. He’s just the well-remunerated sap paid to try to explain how Tunisia are out of the World Cup already.

In the end, Renard simply seemed resigned. “We were hoping for a better reaction, a better performance,” he said. “Unfortunately the score was heavy, but this reflects the difference between the teams. Today we were lacking good defensive organisation. In the first 20 minutes of the second half we were more rigorous but this was not enough.”

This was a landmark game for the World Cup, the 1,000th in its history. What began in chilly Montevideo with simultaneous matches between France and Mexico and the US and Belgium has arrived, 96 years later, in steamy Monterrey with the largest victory for an Asian side in the tournament’s history.

The day before the game, a violent and protracted thunderstorm had led to flooding in the stadium compound and had transformed the main access road into a raging torrent. The only evidence of that on matchday, though, was a film of mud over the tarmac and concrete.

Tunisia’s problems were less easily disguised. Renard retained the same basic shape as Lamouchi and made only three changes, most notably in goal, where Aymen Dahmen replaced Mouhib Chamakh, who had been at least in part responsible for Sweden’s first two goals last week. But a similar lineup had a similar outcome; Tunisia were never in the game.

“The players didn’t get too caught up in the opponent and were able to fully show what we wanted to do,” said a delighted Hajime Moriyasu, Japan’s manager. Japan should have had a penalty within 70 seconds as Ueda was clipped by Ellyes Skhiri as he tried to turn – a mystifying non-award by the Romanian referee, Istvan Kovacs, and an even more mystifying non-intervention by VAR for an obvious foul – but they were ahead within four minutes anyway, a neat move dragging Tunisia across the pitch and leaving space for Keito Nakamura on the Japan left. The wing-back crossed low into a crowded box, the ball cannoning in off the heel of an unsighted Daichi Kamada. Renard advanced towards the edge of his technical area, a look of bewildered horror on his face.

Moriyasu actually made one more change than Renard after his side’s impressive 2-2 draw with the Netherlands. Takefusa Kubo was injured, but the other three tweaks were tactical – and they worked. Having played largely without the ball in that game, Japan poured forward in waves and, but for a last-gasp clearing challenge from Dylan Bronn and then a sprawling save from Dahmen that clawed Takehiro Tomiyasu’s deflected shot away a millimetre from fully crossing the line, Japan would have increased their advantage within the first 10 minutes.

The second, though, was always going to arrive sooner or later and it came after 31 minutes as Ueda, receiving the ball in an inexplicable amount of space, turned, ignored the run of Junya Ito and whipped a shot through the legs of Montasser Talbi and into the bottom corner. Renard’s expression this time was rueful.

Renard can at least take credit for having tightened things up after the break but by then it was too late. Japan were watched from the VIP box by Hisako, the widow of Norihito, grandson of Emperor Taishō, who travelled with her husband to South Korea shortly before the 2002 World Cup for the first visit by the imperial family since the second world war. What she saw was a very good side who spent the second half conserving energy and playing within themselves against a far inferior team.

Ito added a third from Ueda’s flick after 69 minutes, played onside by Mohamed Amine Ben Hmida who was dallying a good three or four yards behind the rest of the defensive line. Renard, incredulous, watched the replay on an iPad and spent much of the subsequent drinks break standing purse-lipped staring into the middle distance. Ueda’s clever looping header made it four and by then, Renard looked broken.

He’s surely too long in the game ever to have imagined the Tunisia job might be a long-term appointment but, given recent precedent, Renard will be lucky to make it to Thursday’s final group game against the Netherlands.

Keyword – Politics
Trefwoorden – Politics, Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham, Makerfield byelection, UK news, Labour party leadership, Labour
Title – Starmer expected to announce departure on Monday as growing numbers of MPs back Burnham for PM – UK politics live | Politics | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/yohannes-lowe,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/heatherstewart,https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterwalker
Link – Starmer expected to announce departure on Monday as growing numbers of MPs back Burnham for PM – UK politics live | Politics | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-21T12:25:31.000Z
Category – News
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/jun/21/keir-starmer-expected-resign-resignation-monday–andy-burnham-makerfield-labour-uk-politics-latest-news-updates

Starmer expected to announce departure as prime minister on Monday

The Guardian’s senior political correspondent, Peter Walker , has more on the prime minister’s intentions going forward:

Keir Starmer is expected to announce on Monday that he will step down as prime minister, after overwhelming pressure from Labour MPs to make way for Andy Burnham to become Labour leader.

The prime minister and his allies had insisted for weeks that they would fight a leadership challenge from Burnham, or anyone else, before the Makerfield byelection in which Burnham was hoping to secure a return to Westminster.

But on Sunday morning, the business secretary, Peter Kyle, told Sky News that Starmer was spending the weekend “making time to reflect on the political realities” he faces.

Speaking for the government, Kyle refused to say what he thought Starmer’s plans were, or what he had asked the PM to do. You can read the full story here:

Labour backbencher, Barry Gardiner, has said he doesn’t want to see a Labour leadership contest, but that the PM should go.

Gardiner, who has been a Labour MP continuously for almost three decades, said he believes Keir Starmer should be “able to go with dignity”.

Speaking to Sky News , Gardiner said:

I think what we will see is the prime minister setting out a timescale. I want him to be able to go with dignity. I think it should not be, in any way, a contest that humiliates him. Although I do understand why people say it would be good to have a contest so people can set out their stalls and we can be clear about exactly what Andy Burnham is offering.

Labour MP for Chesterfield, Toby Perkins, a Starmer loyalist, said it needs to be clear whether a new leader would take the party on a “radical departure” from the manifesto it was elected on two years ago.

Meanwhile, the former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips, who resigned from the government in May , said candidates should at least present their ideas to the Parliamentary Labour Party.

“I very much hope that over the next week, at least, that whilst we may not end up with a full-scale contest, that there is an opportunity to properly question, in somewhat of a public forum, what’s coming next?,” she told the BBC.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has written in the Mail on Sunday that her party would never sign up to an electoral pact with Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader.

“We are not the same, and voters are not ours to trade like football cards,” she wrote, as she claimed that Reform are in favour of a bigger state, nationalisation and “unfunded giveaways”. “Reform dress like Thatcherites but act like Corbynites,” Badenoch wrote.

“Farage may be trying to unite the right, I am trying to unite the country.” This statement jars with the reality of the Conservatives trying hard to win back some of their voters by adopting divisive Reform-like stances on issues such as immigration and asylum policy.

At national level, Badenoch, whose party has consistently trialled behind Reform in national polls, and Farage have both rejected talk that they could go into the next election with some sort of electoral pact.

A string of conservative MPs and former ministers have defected from the Tories to Reform over recent months , citing their disillusionment with the party. But their defections have led many to question how different Farage’s party is to previous Conservative administrations that he blames for huge failures in governance and policy – especially on immigration.

The Guardian’s economics editor, Heather Stewart , has written an interesting analysis piece suggesting it would be wise for Andy Burnham to set clear expectations about tax and spend if he is not to spook the bond markets in the likely event he becomes prime minister. Here is an extract from her analysis in our weekly economics viewpoint column :

Burnham’s every pronouncement – and that of whoever he picks as chancellor – will now be watched intently by the markets.

If his team are serious about nationalisation of key utilities , they may well want to borrow significantly more – something Rachel Reeves’s rules allow for, where the government gets a financial asset, such as a shareholding, in return.

The logic is that the nation’s balance sheet has barely changed, if it takes on a new liability to bondholders, but that’s matched with something that generates a financial return.

The bond markets may be wary of taking such a laid-back view, however, if a Burnham government cannot show that when it comes to day-to-day spending – pensions, benefits, public services – it has a plan to make ends meet.

Under Labour party rules, any MP who wishes to challenge to be leader needs the backing of at least 20% of the parliamentary party, or 81 MPs.

The former health secretary, Wes Streeting, has pledged to seek the top job and says he has sufficient backers, but allies of Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham are sceptical.

His candidacy will become less likely if wavering Labour backbenchers conclude that they would prefer to back a likely winner and swing behind Burnham.

Starmer’s departure will set the UK on course for a seventh prime minister in 10 years, just two years after he led Labour to a sweeping general election victory, winning a majority of 174 seats.

His premiership has been battered by controversies and U-turns, including over winter fuel payments to older people and the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington .

Labour has slumped in the polls, and Starmer himself is enormously unpopular with much of the public. Reform UK has led for more than 300 consecutive national polls and many Labour MPs are increasingly convinced that without a change of leader, Nigel Farage will win the next election.

The former Conservative prime minister Rishi Sunak has given Andy Burnham some advice in a piece for the Sunday Times . As a reminder, in July 2024 Sunak lost to Keir Starmer in what was the Tory party’s worst general election defeat in its parliamentary history. Sunak, who is still the MP for Richmond and Northallerton, wrote:

Burnham must recognise that if he reaches No 10, he’ll never have more power than on his first day in the job . It is vital he has a clear and achievable plan for what he wants to do in those opening hours .

Those around Burnham will want to get him there by forcing Starmer out through ministerial resignations and the like. Burnham shouldn’t want to become PM by default , though.

I remember on the morning after Boris Johnson dropped out in October 2022, I kept suggesting to my team that we should want a contest, that it would be good for us.

They assumed that I was just emotionally preparing for another candidate getting the necessary nominations and having to go through a leadership election. But I actually meant it. Without one, your mandate is weak, and you end up being bound by commitments that aren’t your priorities .

Some commentators have said Andy Burnham is just a better communicator than Keir Starmer, but have questioned how different he is on policy.

The Guardian’s policy editor, Kiran Stacey, has helpfully looked at the political projects a Burnham government would likely pursue in this useful explainer:

Foreign secretary tells Starmer to stand down – report

The foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, has told Keir Starmer he should stand down as prime minister, Sky News is reporting .

Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, and transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, have all also urged the prime minister to lay out a timetable for his departure from No 10, according to other news reports.

As he spent Sunday at Chequers considering his premiership, Keir Starmer took the time to post on social media about father’s day. He wrote on X :

Being a dad is my greatest joy.Today, I’m thinking about my dad, and the father I am to my children because of him. Happy Father’s Day.

The shadow chancellor, Mel Stride, said nothing will fundamentally change if Andy Burnham replaces Keir Starmer as prime minister because the Labour party is “addicted” to debt and borrowing – and that is something that will continue under new leadership.

On Burnham specifically, Stride told Sky News: “This is somebody who has flip-flopped all over the place. You have seen it even in this byelection itself.”

“He doesn’t apparently understand what the fiscal rules are. He said rather foolish things about the bond markets in the past. The markets are watching,” Stride said, in reference to Bunrham previously suggesting the country should be less in hock to the reaction of bond traders . The outgoing Greater Manchester mayor has since bolstered his team of economic advisers in an apparent attempt to boost his fiscal credibility.

Stride went on to say that Burnham taking over as prime minister would be “bad and in the wrong direction”. The Conservatives would like Starmer to stay as leader because of his deep unpopularity across the country, as reflected in Labour’s disastrous election results across England, Scotland and Wales in May.

Peter Kyle has been speaking to Laura Kuenssberg on her Sunday politics programme. The business secretary repeated very similar lines to the ones he gave Sky News earlier this morning, notably that Keir Starmer is taking the time this weekend to think through the “political realities” he faces “today” (compared to the last two weeks). He said Starmer will reflect on what is in the country’s best interest.

Peter Kyle said Labour should not descend into infighting in the way that the Conservatives did whenever they faced a “moment of political challenge”. The Tories were readily defeated at the 2024 election by Starmer after churning through five prime ministers in seven years, including three during 2022.

When asked if he thinks it is in the country’s interest for Keir Starmer to go, Peter Kyle tellingly dodged the question and said it was imperative for the government to continue to function despite the political turbulence. He told Sky News:

My priority when I think what my role is in putting the country first is to uphold the authority of this government to make sure we can govern through a moment of political challenge and that we are 100% focused on delivering.

Starmer expected to announce departure as prime minister on Monday

The Guardian’s senior political correspondent, Peter Walker , has more on the prime minister’s intentions going forward:

Keir Starmer is expected to announce on Monday that he will step down as prime minister, after overwhelming pressure from Labour MPs to make way for Andy Burnham to become Labour leader.

The prime minister and his allies had insisted for weeks that they would fight a leadership challenge from Burnham, or anyone else, before the Makerfield byelection in which Burnham was hoping to secure a return to Westminster.

But on Sunday morning, the business secretary, Peter Kyle, told Sky News that Starmer was spending the weekend “making time to reflect on the political realities” he faces.

Speaking for the government, Kyle refused to say what he thought Starmer’s plans were, or what he had asked the PM to do. You can read the full story here:

Starmer is reflecting on the ‘political realities and challenges’ he currently faces, cabinet minister says

The business and trade secretary, Peter Kyle, told Sky News that he has not spoken to Starmer since Friday – but he had a “very detailed conversation” with him then, which he said was “private” and “personal”.

“The prime minister was calm. He was thoughtful. He led the conversation,” Kyle told Trevor Philips.

“Repeatedly, the prime minister asked about the country. Not once in that conversation, which was a lengthy conversation, did he ever ask about self-interest; it was always about the country . And I think that is the tone of the conversation I had with him.

“ It was frank , and I think that is the mindset that the prime minister is in as he goes into this weekend, through which he has been working very hard as prime minister, as he always does, but also trying to make time to reflect on the political challenges at the moment .”

Kyle went on to say that Starmer is “ making time to reflect on the political realities , challenges and opportunities that he finds himself in ”. Over the weekend, the prime minister has been at his country retreat, Chequers, spending time with his wife, Victoria, and children.

Starmer reportedly expected to resign on Monday as growing numbers of MPs back Andy Burnham for PM

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, is expected to resign on Monday and is preparing to set out a timetable for an orderly departure from No 10, according to the Observer .

The paper reports that Starmer, who has insisted he would fight any leadership challenge, now recognises his position is untenable after talking with cabinet ministers, party donors and trade union leaders over the last couple of days.

“He’s come up hard against the reality that the support isn’t there,” one source told the Observer. “The truth is everyone knows this is no longer a tenable proposition. There’s a sadness about it all, of course, but sometimes there’s just an inevitability in politics and as Boris Johnson said, ‘When the herd moves it moves’.”

No 10 has denied the report that Starmer is about to resign and said he is getting on with the job of prime minister.

The number of MPs backing Andy Burnham for the Labour leadership surged following his triumphant byelection victory in Mankerfield last week which showed he could fight off Reform in a general election.

The Greater Manchester mayor is expected to be in Westminster on Monday to be sworn into the House of Commons. He is reportedly planning to speak to Starmer afterwards and present him with a list of backers – which he is said to be seeking to get up to 200 – in an attempt to press him to step down and set out a transition.

Allies of Burnham favour a longer wait to allow them to prepare for government, which could mean Starmer could remain prime minister for months.

The number of Labour MPs publicly calling for Starmer to go has exceeded 100 – just under a quarter of the party’s MPs – and includes many who want a transition of power without the spectacle of a potentially messy leadership contest.

Starmer is under pressure to reveal his plans before a crunch cabinet meeting on Tuesday, where a number of ministers are expected to tell him his time is up.

Keyword – Culture
Trefwoorden – Culture, Music, Indie
Title – Post your questions for Vini Reilly of the Durutti Column | Culture | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/laura-snapes
Link – Post your questions for Vini Reilly of the Durutti Column | Culture | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-19T12:46:10.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2026/jun/19/post-your-questions-for-the-durutti-column-vini-reilly

A t the end of July, the Durutti Column will release their first new music in 16 years: the stunningly beautiful Renascent. It’s a prime time for Vini Reilly, Bruce Mitchell and Keir Stewart to return as the Durutti influence is everywhere: sampled by Blood Orange on his latest album Essex Honey; cited by Harry Styles on his new LP Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, as well as by Mark William Lewis and Yung Lean; played on The Bear.

Not that the group need the endorsements: since 1978, they have been one of the UK’s most distinctive acts, their dreamy instrumentals offering a sunlit alternative to the crags of post-punk, as last year’s reissue of their debut, The Return of the Durutti Column reminded us. The record’s deviation from the norms of the era, wrote Alexis Petridis in a five-star reappraisal, “ultimately worked in its favour: other than the sound of the primitive rhythm tracks, there’s nothing to tie the music here to a specific era, which means it hasn’t dated.”

You can ask Reilly about being the first act to sign to Factory Records, having that debut album compiled against his will by producer Martin Hannett, working with Morrissey, learning to play guitar again after suffering a stroke, and quite how this new album came about. “I’ve got a good excuse to stop now because I’ve got arthritis,” he told us in 2023 – yet here we are, with as gorgeous a record as they’ve ever made.

Post your questions in the comments by the end of 23 June and the best answers will appear on Guardian music soon.

Keyword – Film
Trefwoorden – Film, Italy, Europe, World news, Culture
Title – Bologna’s niche festival of forgotten films captures the streaming generation | Film | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/angela-giuffrida
Link – Bologna’s niche festival of forgotten films captures the streaming generation | Film | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-19T12:00:33.000Z
Category – Culture
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jun/19/bologna-italy-festival-forgotten-films-il-cinema-ritrovato

Bologna will be transformed into an open-air museum of cinema on Saturday as a nine-day festival dedicated to restored, rediscovered and overlooked films – some dating back more than a century – gets under way in the northern Italian city.

Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, Il Cinema Ritrovato, or “rediscovered cinema”, has evolved from its niche origins into an influential international gathering captivating a new generation of cinephiles.

Last year’s edition, which included the resurrection of Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 film The Gold Rush, drew a record 140,000 people, who crowded into Bologna’s Renaissance square, Piazza Maggiore, and other locations in the city’s historical centre for screenings of film classics.

In an interview with the Guardian, Gian Luca Farinelli, who co-founded the festival and is now one of its four directors, compared the experience to “walking through the ruins of the past”.

A similar number of visitors is expected this year. But it was not always this way. Farinelli conceived the idea for the festival at 19 with two friends from his cinema club, Michele Canosa and Nicola Mazzanti, after being introduced to Bologna’s Cineteca, a film library formed in 1963 that today includes a laboratory regarded as one of the world’s most influential for the restoration of films and documentaries.

Delving through Cineteca’s archives, the three friends “began to discover many things that we did not know”, Farinelli said. “We wanted to find an audience to show these jewels to.”

They found that audience shortly before Christmas in 1986 when the debut edition joined forces with another film festival held at Cineteca’s Lumière cinema.

Enno Patalas, the German film historian and a pioneer of film restoration, brought the 1931 cinema classic M and Metropolis, both by the director Fritz Lang, to the event.

“From the outset it was clear that this was an extraordinary field,” said Farinelli, who since 2000 has been the director of Cineteca. “We also very quickly understood that there was a void in Italy – nobody was really specialising in restored films, and so this is how we created the [Cineteca] laboratory.”

Although it steadily grew each year, Il Cinema Ritrovato remained largely the preserve of classic film enthusiasts until 1995 when the festival shifted to a summer slot. “This made our work much better known,” Farinelli said.

The regular attendance of a host of international film directors, among them Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Wes Anderson, as well as the Italian director Alice Rohrwacher has also helped to enhance its profile.

In more recent years, attendance has soared. “Another extraordinary aspect is that we have seen the younger audiences explode,” Farinelli said. “For younger people, cinema of the past is a great surprise. Yes, they know the [streaming] platforms and all the series, but in Bologna they discover that cinema has a long history. They also discover the pleasure of watching films together in a square with other people.”

More than 500 films from world cinema will feature in the festival’s 40th-anniversary edition , ranging from silent films to 1980s Hollywood greats and restored films that were long buried.

“This year we will present various films that nobody has ever talked about, so it’s like seeing a film for the first time,” Farinelli said.

Among them is A Spring for the Thirsty, a black and white 1965 surrealist film by the Ukrainian director Yuri Ilyenko that was censored by Soviet authorities for its alleged “ideological perversions” before finally being released in 1987. This will be its first significant airing after being painstakingly restored by Fixafilm in collaboration with the Dovženko Studio in Kyiv.

“I have seen a huge amount of films in my life, but seeing this one was shocking – I have never seen a film like it,” Farinelli said.

Retrospectives will be dedicated to the Italian director Luchino Visconti, including a restoration of Il Gattopardo (The Leopard), as well as the screen legends Barbara Stanwyck and Josephine Baker.

Farinelli said: “When someone organises a festival, you can only hope that it will grow. But what is quite unique about Il Cinema Ritrovato is that it has grown while maintaining its principles – that is, to go in-depth and show films but also the complicity, richness and contradictions of the history of cinema.”

This article was amended on 19 June 2026. An earlier version said Spring for the Thirsty was restored by Cineteca. In fact, it was restored by Fixafilm in collaboration with the Dovženko Studio in Kyiv.

Keyword – Opinion
Trefwoorden – Parents and parenting, Life and style, Social media, Social media ban, Social media bans, Media
Title – Social media bans are trending. But it’s too late for my son and me | Dave Schilling | The Guardian
Author – https://www.theguardian.com/profile/dave-schilling
Link – Social media bans are trending. But it’s too late for my son and me | Dave Schilling | The Guardian
Publish date – 2026-06-20T11:00:04.000Z
Category – Opinion
URL – https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/20/social-media-addiction-ban

T ry as I might, I think there’s no saving my son from modern technology. It’s ubiquitous, seductive and deeply ingrained in every aspect of middle-class life. Worse yet, I’m also addicted. When do I not have my iPhone out, desperately scrolling through a suite of apps, hoping they’ll offer me some manner of comfort from the security of my living room couch? Hours go by as I’m practically begging someone to notice me on Instagram, while he’s skipping from brainrot videos to basketball tutorials on our internet-connected TV. Ten years ago, I might have witnessed a scene like that and thought it was a sign of the end times. We’ve lost our way so much as a culture that a parent and a child can be simultaneously subsumed by screens, barely noticing the other person . But at some point, everyone realizes that the battle is lost. This is just how it is.

In spite of that grim diagnosis, Keir Starmer – who turned snatching defeat from the jaws of victory his personal brand – has made this losing battle a signature issue. This week, the British prime minister announced a comprehensive ban on social media for children under the age of 16 . That includes Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, Snapchat and YouTube (though not the kids’ version ). The ban is modeled on one currently deployed in Australia, which has holes wide enough to drive a fleet of vintage Sherman tanks through. Teenagers in Australia are finding ways around their ban already, and of course they are. When I was 15, if I wanted a six-pack of Budweiser or some of those tiny airplane liquor bottles, I could figure it out.

The UK will try the policy anyway, swearing that their social media ban is tougher. “Australia-plus”, as it was described by Starmer, like it’s an esoteric streaming service that only shows rugby and Crocodile Dundee movies. We must applaud the attempt, even if it’s plainly quixotic. Restrictions on underage drinking and cigarettes might not prevent every kid from picking up a bad habit, but what would it say about our society if we didn’t bother trying? Still, I’m fully aware that keeping my kid off social media until the day he turns 16 is about as likely as him reading the entirety of James Joyce’s Ulysses. First of all, he hasn’t even started yet. Second, he’s reading at a third-grade level. Because he’s in third grade.

I suppose I could model better behavior for him. I could put my phone away. I could drag him outside for an aimless walk. I could force him into some elaborate arts-and-crafts project that I will then have to clean up after he’s done. Maybe we could pretend to be fairies in the forest and sprinkle invisible pixie dust on each other? We could, but I don’t want to do any of those things. I want to share this clip from La Dolce Vita on my Stories. What if a beautiful woman likes it and messages me? Oh, wouldn’t that be a fine thing?

Of course, as I’m modeling neurotic, digitally corrupted behavior, my son peers over to see what’s so damned important. “I’m on Instagram,” I blurt out, turning sharply to shield my shame from his view. He doesn’t need to know I’m a sad, middle-aged single man. Or at least he doesn’t need to know right now . When I text friends about the “depths of my solitude”, he has to peek. Fortunately, the only texts he really cares about are the ones I send to his mother, which are far more normal. Things like “yes, we’re watching YouTube again” or “he wants a Lamborghini because he saw one in a YouTube video.”

“Lambos are cool, Dad,” he’ll say, slyly picking up my subtle frustration. You know what isn’t cool? Significant credit card debt. The thing that social media and online video has done the most with my son is make him not understand the basic tenets of capitalism as I know them. When I was his age, I understood that money comes from work. That work affords you a salary, which can be really high or really low. What you can afford is dictated by the boundaries of your bank account. YouTube has obliterated the concept of financial hierarchy. It says: you can have whatever you want in life as long as you have enough rizz, that you farm the requisite amount of aura. Success, according to YouTube, is not tied to work. It’s about clout. And maybe that’s true these days, and that’s why I don’t own a sports car. Can’t get many aura points if you’re too busy updating your Hinge profile.

In some twisted, dystopian way, our form of online parallel play is like bonding for the modern age. We watch YouTube on TV, which means no easily visible comments section, no trolls. Just a lean-back TV watching experience, though one more chaotic than what I grew up with. My parents sat down to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation with me every week, and even though we were practically mute for an hour every Saturday, they were at least showing an appreciation for my interests. Watching YouTube with my son might be the 21st-century version of that. Instead of restrictions or draconian surveillance, I sit there with him while he watches a guy get hit in the groin with a Slim Jim-branded baseball bat to win $15,000.

At least we’re doing it together. At least we’re both sufficiently curious about the other’s technological addiction that we can be skeptical. Why is my son watching baseball bat punishment videos? And why am I doomscrolling and hoping to meet “single women in your area”? Perhaps the only thing that will break the cycle of social media addiction isn’t an elaborate law, but the basic shame of transparency. Whenever my son peers over my shoulder to ask me what I’m doing, I’m snapped out of my own neuroses and placed back into reality. I suffer a bit of embarrassment, then stow my phone back in my pocket. The lure of the infinite void of the internet will come back soon enough, but for at least a moment, my son and I can share a bit of joy. This is the life , I say, as we watch a woman eat a handful of Pop Rocks and brush her teeth .

Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist