Labour set to announce crackdown on social media for children within weeks | Social media ban

Labor is expected to announce a crackdown on social media within weeks, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying on Tuesday he would act “very, very quickly” despite disagreement among campaigners and child safety experts over what the new rules should be.

New restrictions on children’s social media access could be introduced ahead of next month’s Makerfield by-election after analyzing an avalanche of responses to public consultation with the help of an artificial intelligence system called Consult and an expert panel led by a distinguished pediatrician. The consultation will end on Tuesday.

Changes to age limits or allegedly addictive design features (or a combination of both) will come into effect before the end of the year and could affect a wide range of platforms, including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, gaming sites like Roblox, and messaging services like Snap.

Starmer’s pledge to act quickly came as his leadership rival, former health secretary Wes Streeting, accused lawmakers on Tuesday of being “asleep at the wheel” on tackling the harms of social media. Streeting also likened technology to smoking. The prime minister’s spokesman denied the government was moving too slowly.

There are concerns within the government that the reforms could face legal challenges if the consultation process is not followed properly. More than 42,000 parents and nearly 14,000 young people took part in the consultation process, which included extensive lobbying by social media companies opposing changes to their algorithms, among more than 81,000 participants. Technology secretary Liz Kendall said on Tuesday: “No one is going to stop me from doing what I think is right.”

Online Safety Minister Kanishka Narayan is in Australia to investigate the under-16 social media ban that has been in place for nearly six months.

Some leading child protection groups reject a similar blanket ban, fearing a “cliff edge” on online safety.

School leaders represented by the National Association of Headteachers also spoke out on Tuesday, warning that an outright ban on under-16s could create a false sense of security and push children into less regulated online spaces. Industry sources said ministers could agree to require tech platforms to prove that features of their products do not harm children, and if they fail to do so the platforms will be blocked for children.

Pressure to act is mounting, with lawmakers in Greece, France, Denmark, Spain, Indonesia and Malaysia taking steps to follow Australia with social media bans on young people. On Tuesday, Starmer met with the families of young people who were negatively affected by social media, including those whose children died.

“I have read the stories of all your family members,” he told them. “It is important that we take action, and we will take action. I can absolutely assure you of that.”

These were expected to include Ian Russell, whose 14-year-old daughter Molly Russell died from self-harm in 2017 after suffering; A coroner found “adverse effects of online content” when using Instagram.

Russell is among campaigners opposing an Australian-style social media ban on under-16s, believing it would create a “cliff edge” that would expose young people to harmful content on unreformed platforms once they are old enough. The Molly Rose Foundation, which she founded in her name, has called for platforms to be required to adopt higher minimum opt-in ages if they introduce higher-risk design features and for tech firms to be given a new duty to promote and protect children’s welfare.

The foundation is calling for daily screen time limits and age restrictions on features including infinite scrolling, autoplay, likes, comments, alerts and push notifications, as well as personalized content recommendations.

Starmer also met Esther Ghey, who defended the under-16 ban and said “social media poses a serious risk to under-16s”. Her daughter, Brianna, was murdered in 2023, and she believes her social media addiction contributed to her daughter’s mental health issues, leading her to take risks with her personal safety.

Ellen Roome, the mother of 14-year-old Jools Sweeney, who believes her son died in a TikTok challenge gone wrong, told the Today programme: “They spend millions and billions of pounds building their systems. They might spend some money to actually fix their systems and say it’s a safe product now and give it back. But until it’s safe, I say with all my heart: take it away.”

The government is also in talks with major technology companies. Meta, which runs Instagram, has called on ministers not to let the new rules disrupt the algorithm, arguing that it helps direct users to posts they are interested in. He also argues that if age restrictions are implemented, they should be enforced through device operating systems and not on an app-by-app basis.

Justine Roberts, founder of Mumsnet, said: “The government has already waited too long on this issue. We need a delay in social media access for under-16s, backed by appropriate age assurance, strong enforcement and sanctions for platforms that don’t comply. Families are tired of having to fight the billion-dollar power of big tech on their own while the government hesitates and their children suffer.”