UK Bans Social Media for Under-16s
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- Keir Starmer confirmed at 10 Downing Street that under-16s will be banned from social media following Australia's model, with additional curbs for 16-17 year olds including a expected night-time curfew.
- Australia's ban, enforced in December, has been undercut because most children who had social media accounts before enforcement still have them, a failure attributed to weak age verification by tech companies.
- Gaming platforms are exempt from the ban but must disable livestreaming, and industry contacts told the reporter they were blindsided that enforcement will fall on individual platforms rather than Apple and Google gatekeeping app stores.
- Tech companies have less than a year to meet the proposed spring implementation deadline, with one industry source warning the entire rollout could face judicial review due to the speed at which it was advanced.
- Donald Trump has not yet been briefed on the ban despite Starmer heading to the G7 summit the same day; the US government told the UK's public consultation that a ban was not the solution, and Trump has previously railed against foreign regulation of US tech.
- Campaigners and ministers argue tech companies failed for years to protect children, while companies counter that they have introduced numerous parental controls — though former Meta exec Sir Nick Clegg once said parents are overwhelmed by the sheer number of such tools.
Why it matters: The policy puts the UK on a collision course with the US government and the same American tech companies investing millions in UK infrastructure, while Starmer has under a year to deliver a working age-verification system that Australia has already failed to build — with millions of UK teens' digital lives hanging in the balance.
