The UK Places a Sweeping Ban on Social Media for Kids Under 16

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Children under the age of 16 will be banned from social media platforms in the UK, under new measures announced by prime minister Keir Starmer on Monday.

“The need for action could not be clearer. Social media is making our children unhappy and unsafe,” Starmer wrote in an X post. “Our children deserve better.”

Under-16s will lose access to social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube, while the minimum age for chatbots that imitate romantic interactions will be raised to 18. The ban does not apply to messaging services WhatsApp and Signal.

Under the new measures, expected to come into force in spring  2027, the UK government will also ban livestreaming features and the ability for strangers to contact children under the age of 16 across all platforms.

In an effort to restrict late-night doomscrolling, it will also consider introducing an overnight social media curfew for under-18s, with details to follow in July.

The social media ban is characterized by the UK government as an attempt to shield children from extreme and graphic content and other online harms, such as bullying. “This is a line in the sand,” Starmer added. “Tech giants had their chance and failed, but we’re stepping in to protect children, back parents, and set a new normal for future generations.”

Meta, X, and TikTok did not respond immediately to requests for comment. YouTube spokesperson Jay Stoll said, “YouTube is a vital resource for young people, educators, and parents. Blanket bans push kids out of such curated, supervised, beneficial experiences and toward anonymous, less safe services.”

“Because the majority of time spent on Snapchat is in private messaging between friends and family, an outright ban that disconnects teens from those relationships doesn’t make them safer—it may simply push them to less safe platforms,” says Frederika Cook, public policy at Snap.

Though British politicians have considered restricting teenagers’ use of social media for a number of years, the idea has gained in popularity since the Australian government imposed a similar ban—the first of its kind—last November. The issue has become surprisingly prominent in recent elections at all levels, multiple members of Parliament tell WIRED, and opposition parties have come out in support of a ban.

The UK ban follows a public consultation process that ran from March to May, attracting more than 100,000 submissions from parents, academics, lobbyists, government bodies, and the like. The government announced the new measures before releasing its full findings from the consultation, which it has promised to make public by the end of the summer.

A former special adviser to Starmer’s Labour government, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss internal party matters, says they believe that Starmer rushed through the ban in a bid to shore up parliamentary support, anticipating a challenge to his leadership. “The issue is a significant one for voters, and high-pressure by-elections [the equivalent of a special election in the US] and threats of a leadership challenge have forced Downing Street to move,” they say.

A preliminary research briefing published by the government suggests that the consultation respondents were broadly divided into three camps: those who supported total ban on social media for under 16s, those who supported a ban on particular features, and those who objected to any form of restriction.

More than 90 percent of parents that responded to the consultation support an outright ban. One of the most vocal advocates was Esther Ghey, mother of transgender teenager Brianna Ghey, murdered by two fellow schoolchildren in 2023. In her submission, Ghey said that her daughter’s mental health struggles were “significantly exacerbated by the harmful content she was consuming online.”

Those who called for a curb on allegedly high-risk features, rather than outright prohibition, characterize a ban as too blunt an instrument. “Something has to change, absolutely,” says Rowan Ferguson, policy manager at the Molly Rose Foundation, a suicide-prevention charity. “But what we’re really concerned about with the ban is that the government chooses to rush into solutions that the evidence just doesn’t support rather than addressing the causes of harm.” Ferguson and others have argued that the root of the problem is the addictive design of these products, which the ban does not address.

“It’s very comforting, isn’t it? We’ve got this policy; it’ll nip it in the bud,” says Emily Setty, associate professor of criminology at the University of Surrey, whose research focuses on online sexual behaviors among young people. “My fear is that this ban will be performative—and everything else will remain the same.”

The UK government press office did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

That seems to have been largely the case in Australia, now almost seven months into its own ban. A recent study by Australia’s online safety regulator eSafety found that 70 percent of under-16s in the country continue to access banned social media platforms. In March, the regulator said it was investigating Snap, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube for potential noncompliance. Teenagers are reportedly bypassing restrictions using virtual private networks to conceal their location or by supplying false credentials.

Responding to the ban imposed by Australia in November, Meta accused the government of “failing to properly consider the evidence,” while X CEO Elon Musk said the policy “seems like a backdoor way to control access to the internet by all Australians.” In December, Reddit sued the Australian government in a bid to overturn the policy.

Recently, social media companies have peppered the inboxes of British members of Parliament to dispute proposed policy wording that would dictate whether they were caught in any UK ban, according to a lobbyist for a tech group, who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive topics.

The new rules could also stoke tensions between the UK and the US administration, which is fiercely protective of Silicon Valley firms. In a submission to the public consultation, the US government advocated for narrow restrictions on pornographic and other adult content. “We have concerns about regulations that impose disproportionate compliance burdens on American companies,” it wrote.

US officials have previously complained that the UK’s Online Safety Act, which requires platforms to prevent children from accessing age-inappropriate content, infringes on free speech. In February 2025, US vice president JD Vance claimed that free speech in the UK was “in retreat.”

In the UK, the tech lobbyist claims there’s a schism between senior ministers who worry about alienating social media companies and backbench MPs who tend to advocate for a more aggressive approach.

Those who support restrictions on social media hope the new measures are a “downpayment” on yet further interventions geared toward shielding children from online harms. The Molly Rose Foundation is calling on the government to extend the Online Safety Act, for example, to impose a broad “duty of care” on platform operators that would limit the opportunity for surface-level, tick-box compliance.

“At the end of the day, these business models prioritize profit over children’s safety,” claims Ferguson. “It’s right that we challenge that as hard as we possibly can.”