Minister admits under-16s social media ban not a ‘silver bullet’ as Musk hits out at ‘censorship’
The technology minister has admitted that a social media ban on under-16s is not a “magic solution” as he faces a backlash from Big Tech firms that will be affected by the restriction.
Liz Kendall, the minister responsible, acknowledged many children would manage to get around the ban but insisted the restriction would lead to a “significant change in behaviour”.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, owner of social media platform X, said the ban was untenable and amounted to censorship.
Other social media firms are casting doubt on the effectiveness of Australian-style measures the UK Government hopes to implement in the spring of next year.
Ms Kendall, the technology secretary, told the BBC: “I never thought the ban would be a total silver bullet.
“I think it’s going to be about providing clarity for parents and kids, but also about resetting expectations and social norms for kids who are seven, eight, nine, 10 years old, and they’re not going to be on social media anymore until they’re 16.”
He insisted the UK’s use of “highly effective age verification measures” would make the ban stronger than the Australian system.
But he added: “I have no doubt that children who currently use social media as an integral part of their lives will try to get around the ban and many of them will succeed.
“But we think we need to draw that line firmly, provide greater clarity for parents and greater protection for children.”
The ban is expected to cover platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, but not messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal.
Additionally, measures will be taken to prevent children from chatting with adults on game and live broadcast platforms.
The government is also considering potential nightly curfews and cuts to endless scrolling for under-18s, with more details expected next month.
Mr Musk said: “This censorship bill is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The real aim is to get the UK government to keep tabs on everyone.”
Rejecting the idea that the move was necessary to protect children online, he said: “They always use defensible excuses for indefensible things.”
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said it shares the government’s “goal to keep young people safe online” and noted that it has developed youth accounts that “automatically limit who can contact them and the content they see.”
But a spokesman for the company added: “Like others, we do not think bans will achieve this goal.
“As we have seen in Australia, bans risk isolating young people from online communities and information and directing them to unregulated alternatives that lack established protections and parental controls.”
YouTube similarly warned that the ban could push children into “less safe services”.
Bereaved parents and many child safety advocates welcomed Sir Keir Starmer’s announcement as a requirement for young people who say they have been exposed to harmful content online.
However, the Molly Rose Foundation claimed this might be “impracticable” and that the Prime Minister “chose not to follow the evidence but instead choose the politically expedient option”.
The foundation, which was established in memory of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who committed suicide after viewing harmful content on the internet in 2017, argued that the ban could fail to solve what it described as “fundamental product safety issues”, such as the presentation of harmful and disturbing content to people through personalized algorithms.
