UK social media ban: How could new laws for under-16s work?
Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to crack down on smartphone use by children under 16 in the UK within months.
The Prime Minister will meet parents and young people on Monday to insist the government does all it can to keep children safe online.
The consultation on new social media protections will begin in March and will be guided by what parents and children want to see.
Before laying out new plans to prevent harm, Sir Keir warned that no online platform will get a “free pass” when it comes to children’s safety online.
He added: “Technology is moving really fast and the law needs to keep pace. Thanks to my government, Britain will be a leader, not a follower, when it comes to online security.”
So what is actually proposed by the government? We take a look at the possibilities below.
What online safety measures could the government introduce for children?
The government plans to consult on banning children from social media and restricting features such as infinite scrolling.
Under proposals put forward by the Prime Minister, children could also be prevented from illegally accessing pornography using virtual private networks (VPNs) and their conversations with chatbots could also be restricted.
The government is promising to close legal loopholes that allow chatbots to create deepfake nude images and plans to impose further restrictions on social media.
It follows a war of words between ministers and Elon Musk earlier this year after the Grok AI chatbot embedded on social media site X was used to make fake nude images of women and sexualized images of children.
How and when might the proposals come into effect?
Consultations on new social media protections will begin in March.
Ministers are now taking steps to introduce powers that mean they can act quickly and respond to consequences within months.
Before that, they will take action to close a legal loophole and crack down on all AI chatbot providers. To comply with the Online Safety Act or face the consequences of breaking the law.
Ministers also plan to introduce powers to quickly change the law in response to changing online behavior through the Child Welfare and Schools Act.
Elsewhere, changes to the Crime and Policing Act will be used to ensure chatbots protect users from illegal content.
What can a social media be? Forbidden For those under 16 it looks like this: England including what may be prohibited
While concrete details of the UK’s under-16 social media ban have not been confirmed, Australia, which introduced a social media ban last year, could be seen as a possible template.
Australia began imposing a world-first social media ban on children under 16 in December; It required the top 10 platforms, including TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X/Twitter, to exclude young users or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (£26.5 million); making it one of the world’s toughest digital lockdowns.
The ban was expected to affect more than one million accounts.
The platforms said they would use a combination of tools such as behavioral analysis and age estimation technologies that include selfies to estimate user age to enforce the ban. Identity documents or linked banking information may also be required to verify the user’s age.
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What kind of criticism was received about the social media ban for people under the age of 16?
While Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese insisted his country was showing the world that online harms need not be accepted as an inevitable feature of modern childhood, many young social media users were dismayed at the prospect of being left off the platforms. In the hours before the new law came into force, many people issued mournful farewell proclamations. “No more social media, no more communication with the rest of the world,” one teenager said on TikTok.
The ban was welcomed by some parent groups and child safety advocates, but major tech companies and civil liberties organizations warned it could jeopardize privacy, encourage children to lie about their age and push teens onto riskier platforms.
Research shows that for social media firms, the implementation of the ban marks a new era of stagnation as user numbers remain stable and time spent on platforms decreases. The platforms say they make little profit from advertising aimed at under-16s but warn that the ban will cripple a pipeline of future users.
The government said just before the ban came into force, 86 per cent of Australians aged 8 to 15 were using social media.
Tests: Guard It showed that in the hours after the ban was implemented, some platforms were still in the process of enforcing restrictions, and accounts registered with a person’s date of birth under the age of 16 continued to be allowed.
