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Children under the age of 16 won’t be able to access a range of social media platforms in the UK. In an expected announcement, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says he will fight back if technology companies resist.
Starmer did not immediately say what apps would be covered. He said it would take effect early next year.
He says he is “not prepared to compromise on the safety and happiness of our children.”
With this ban, the UK joins a growing global movement to tighten online safety for children. Australia, Canada, Brazil and Indonesia have introduced legislation or announced age-based restrictions or requirements for children’s access to social media.
Other countries such as Spain, Denmark, and South Korea are still studying or developing similar legislation. France has been debating whether to ban all social media for teens or target specific platforms.
Starmer, who is under pressure from members of his own party to step down over what they see as poor leadership, announced what he calls a “world-leading” action to protect children. He suggested it be more prohibitive than the Australian-style ban on social media for children under 16.
90% of study’s respondents favorable to ban
The government urged firms to take “reasonable steps” to keep children off social media by using age assurance technologies. Face or voice recognition, government IDs or “age inference” protections could be used before logging into social media accounts.
Starmer said the UK would go further than Australia, including curfews for older teenagers and restrictions on AI chatbots.
The decision follows a public comment period in which the government got 116,000 responses from parents, the tech industry and children.
The study found 90% of parents wanted an under-16 ban, including youths, said Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, who added that a ban should be part of other measures.
Australia’s world-leading ban
All under-16-year-olds in Australia have been banned from using social media since December. Children aren’t allowed to use platforms like Tiktok, X, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat, nor to set up new accounts.
Australia became the first country in the world to do this.
Children and parents aren’t the ones taking responsibility when rules are broken. Instead, fines up to A$49.5m (€30.2m) are inflicted on social media companies for serious or repeated breaches.
Along with driving further tensions with the US, this UK ban could lead children to use back doors instead of official sites.
“There is a real risk this will drive some users to worse sites, and policing devices is close to impossible technically,” communications systems professor at the University of Cambridge, Jon Crowcroft said. “Policing platforms is far easier if only regulators would bother.”
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