UK to seek the advice of on social media ban for underneath 16s

The federal government has launched a session on banning social media for underneath 16s within the UK as part of a sequence of measures which it says are meant to “defend younger folks’s wellbeing.”

The package deal may even see England’s schooling inspectorate, Ofsted, given the facility to examine insurance policies on cellphone use when it goes into colleges, with ministers saying they count on colleges to be “phone-free by default” in consequence.

The world’s first social media ban for younger folks took impact in Australia in December 2025, prompting different international locations, together with the UK, to contemplate following swimsuit.

Some specialists and kids’s charities have cautioned towards the concept – nevertheless it has sturdy backing elsewhere.

On Sunday, greater than 60 Labour MPs wrote to the prime minister saying the backed a ban with the mom of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey additionally calling on the federal government to behave.

“Some argue that susceptible kids want entry to social media to search out their neighborhood,” Brianna’s mom Esther Ghey wrote in a letter seen by the BBC.

“Because the guardian of an especially susceptible and trans youngster, I strongly disagree.

“In Brianna’s case, social media restricted her skill to have interaction in real-world social interactions. She had actual pals, however she selected to reside on-line as a substitute.”

The previous college requirements minister Catherine McKinnell, who is without doubt one of the MPs who signed the open letter to Sir Keir Starmer, instructed BBC Information dad and mom at the moment “felt unprepared to take care of the tempo at which social media has modified.”

Talking on Breakfast, on BBC 5Live, she added that whereas kids ought to nonetheless be capable to be “related in a web based world”, she did not consider that meant “being bombarded with info despatched to you by algorithms devised to create cash by tech corporations.”

Know-how Secretary Liz Kendall mentioned in a press release to the Commons on Tuesday, “I can inform the Home we are going to convey ahead a swift three-month session on additional measures to maintain kids secure on-line.”

Based on The Division of Science, Innovation and Know-how, the session will “search views from dad and mom, younger folks and civil society” to find out the effectiveness of a ban.

It could additionally have a look at whether or not extra sturdy age checks could possibly be applied by social media corporations, which could possibly be compelled to take away or restrict options “which drive compulsive use of social media”.

And Ofsted will give harder steerage to colleges to scale back cellphone use – together with telling employees to not use their units for private causes in entrance of pupils.

On Monday Kendall mentioned the legal guidelines within the On-line Security Act had been “by no means meant to be the top level” and mentioned she understood “dad and mom nonetheless have severe issues”.

“We’re decided to make sure know-how enriches kids’s lives, not harms them – and to provide each youngster the childhood they deserve,” she mentioned.

Conservative chief Kemi Badenoch has already mentioned her celebration would introduce a social media ban for under-16s if it was in energy.

She mentioned the session was “extra dither and delay” from Labour.

“The prime minister is attempting to repeat an announcement that the Conservatives made every week in the past, and nonetheless not getting it proper,” she mentioned.

Liberal Democrat schooling spokeswoman Munira Wilson mentioned there was “no time to waste in defending our kids from social media giants” and “this session dangers kicking the can down the highway but once more”.

Nationwide Training Union (NEU) basic secretary Daniel Kebede referred to as the transfer a “welcome shift”.

“Day-after-day, dad and mom and academics see how social media shapes kids’s identities and a focus lengthy earlier than they sit their GCSEs, pulling them into isolating, countless loops of content material,” he mentioned.

The Affiliation of College and School Leaders additionally welcomed the session on social media, however mentioned the federal government had been “sluggish” in responding to the web dangers posed to kids.

The union’s basic secretary Pepe Di’Iasio mentioned there was “clearly a a lot wider drawback of youngsters and younger folks spending far an excessive amount of time on screens and being uncovered to inappropriate content material”.

And Paul Whiteman, basic secretary of the Nationwide Affiliation of Head Lecturers, additionally welcomed the plans to seek the advice of on a possible social media ban.

However he mentioned the suggestion that Ofsted ought to “police” telephones in colleges was “deeply unhelpful and misguided”.

“College leaders want help from authorities, not the specter of heavy-handed inspection,” he added.

It comes as the federal government faces further strain from the Home of Lords, which is anticipated to vote on a proposed ban on Wednesday.

The modification to the Youngsters’s Wellbeing and Faculties Invoice has backing from a number of outstanding figures comparable to former kids’s TV presenter Baroness Benjamin and former schooling minister Lord Nash.

There’s additionally a separate modification calling for the introduction of film-style age scores which might restrict the social media apps kids can entry.

Professor Amy Orben, who leads the Digital Psychological Well being programme on the College of Cambridge’s MRC Cognition and Mind Sciences Unit, instructed the BBC there was “broad settlement” extra wanted to be finished to maintain kids secure on-line.

Nonetheless, she mentioned there was nonetheless “not sturdy proof” that age-based social media bans had been efficient.

Dr Holly Bear from Oxford College, whose work focuses on creating, evaluating, and implementing psychological well being interventions for younger folks, agreed the proof for the results of a social media ban was “nonetheless unfolding”.

“A balanced method could be attempting to scale back algorithm-driven publicity to dangerous content material, bettering safeguards, supporting digital literacy and punctiliously evaluating any main coverage interventions,” she mentioned.

The NSPCC, Childnet, and suicide prevention charity the Molly Rose Basis had been amongst 42 people and our bodies to argue a ban can be the “improper answer” on Saturday.

“It could create a false sense of security that will see kids – but additionally the threats to them – migrate to different areas on-line,” the organisations wrote.

“Although well-intentioned, blanket bans on social media would fail to ship the advance in kids’s security and wellbeing that they so urgently want.”