Starmer to unveil social media ban for under-16s

The government is set to announce a social media ban for under-16s as part of a drive to tackle online harm against young people.

The UK will follow Australia’s example in raising the minimum age for sites such as TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, X, YouTube, Snapchat and Reddit to 16 in a series of measures to be announced by the government next week.

But the prime minister will go beyond Australia by incorporating chatbots and imposing a curfew for older teenagers in a bid to end late-night scrolling.

The government’s consultation on the issue received nearly 116,000 responses, making it the second largest government consultation in history after a consultation on equal marriage in 2012.

On Sunday Downing Street said nearly 90 per cent of the 39,116 parents who responded supported a minimum age of 16 for platforms to offer services to children.

The interview also said three-quarters of respondents (75 per cent) said families would argue less and teachers and schools might find it easier to manage digital behavior (77 per cent) if there were age restrictions on social media, while 88 per cent said fewer children would be exposed to inappropriate or harmful content.

It comes as Culture Minister Lisa Nandy said banning social media for under-16s was not a “magic solution” on its own and should be part of a “basket of measures” to protect children online.

He declined to pre-empt Sir Keir’s announcement but said the government’s consultations had been launched “by the question of how we can better protect young people online, not if we do this”.

The Minister told BBC One: Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg Experience in Australia has shown that the ban will not prevent all young people from accessing social media platforms, but it could help change the culture by changing the expectation that eight, nine, 10 and 11-year-olds “who are not emotionally equipped to deal with it” should be online just because all their friends are online.

It also signaled there may be stricter age checks than in Australia, where there are concerns that some people under 16 are circumventing the ban imposed in December by using virtual private networks (VPNs) or creating accounts with fake dates of birth.

The survey, published in April, found three in five Australian children aged 12 to 15 still have access to one or more online accounts that should be restricted by law.

Ms Nandy told Ms Kuenssberg: “The experience in Australia has shown that one reason why this has been difficult for them to implement is that they don’t have very stringent age verification measures.

“That’s one of the things we’re looking at and the prime minister will have more to say about that tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, a survey found that just one in seven adults trust government ministers to decide which social media platforms are suitable for children, with greater confidence expressed in parents, regulators and schools.

The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) survey of more than 2,000 adults on Wednesday and Thursday found that 51 percent of respondents trust parents to decide which platforms are appropriate, 49 percent trust an independent regulator, 22 percent trust schools, 16 percent trust tech companies and 15 percent trust government ministers.

The survey by YouGov also found that 44 percent support banning under-16s from social media, while 39 percent prefer stricter regulations. Only one in 10 respondents said social media should not be banned or more tightly regulated.

IPPR calls for a blanket ban on social media for those under 16, not just to protect children from harmful content.

Avnee Morjaria, vice president of IPPR and a former teacher, said: “Previous generations had the freedom to make mistakes, experiment and move on. Today’s children are growing up under constant scrutiny, where every insecurity can be amplified and every mistake can be permanently recorded.

“A blanket social media ban for those under 16 is the only effective option. Not because technology is inherently bad, but because we have allowed childhood itself to be shaped for the worse by algorithms.”

The National Education Union (NEU) also called on the prime minister to enact the ban, while the union’s general secretary Daniel Kebede said: “The public supports the action, parents have spoken and the evidence is overwhelming. Anything short of a complete ban would mean bowing to Big Tech.”

But some groups say the ban may not be an appropriate tool to combat the widespread harms of social media.

The Molly Rose Foundation, established in memory of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who committed suicide after watching harmful content online in 2017, said an Australian-style ban could only offer the “perception of security”.

The Children’s Coalition for Online Safety, led by the 5Rights Foundation and including groups such as the NSPCC and Girlguiding, has also called for a broader overhaul of the business models and product design choices of tech companies that risk keeping young users addicted.