𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Under-16s will be banned from accessing social media as part of a drive to improve children’s safety on the internet. It follows months of campaigning from parents and MPs, with the ban set to come in by spring next year.

Announcing the move, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he was responding to fears the sites were harming kids’ mental health and leaving them miserable. “We’re giving children their childhoods back,” Sir Keir said in a speech in Downing Street. Sir Keir, a father of two teenagers, added that parents can see with “their own eyes” that social media “is making children unhappy”.

He said social media was “making it easier for bullies to harass and abuse” children and “could even be harming their mental health – exposing them to content that is dangerous, because that’s what grabs the attention”.

The ban is expected to cover platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, but not messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative Party leader, welcomed the ban but said that Labour had been forced into making it because of her party.

She said: “If the imperfect social media ban is his legacy, I think that says a lot about the Prime Minister, and he would not even be having this ban in place if it wasn’t for the Conservatives.”

Mrs Badenoch added that the proposal was “not perfect” and that she would work with Labour “to get it into a better place”.

Bereaved mother Ellen Roome said she and other parents shed a tear when Sir Keir announced the social media ban.

Her son Jools Sweeney was 14 when he took his own life in 2022, and Ms Roome believes his death could have been linked to an online challenge gone wrong.

She said: “We shouldn’t be having to be in this position, but we all lost our children and campaigned to make a difference for other people’s children, so it was a very powerful but important moment. So delighted to hear it.”

But critics have warned the ban is “impractical, illiberal and ultimately undesirable”.

Dr Christopher Snowdon, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, urged people to “stop judging new legislation by the good intentions of its advocates rather than its likely consequences”.

He added: “We know from Australia that most teenagers will get around the ban and that those who are not able to do so will suffer from social isolation.”

Dr Snowdon said the Government’s action was “reminiscent of attempts to ban the printing press” as he cautioned tech-savvy teens would find ways around the ban.