UK to Ban Social Media for Under-16s, With Sweeping Restrictions for All Teens

The UK is following in the footsteps of Australia and banning all children under the age of 16 from social media. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the ban on Monday, saying that he’ll introduce legislation into Parliament before Christmas, with protections expected to come into force by spring 2027.

The ban is designed supported by nine out of ten British parents, according to a survey of more than 116,000 people carried out by the government. It’s designed to allow less time for scrolling and more time for play, according to the official government announcement.

“Parents want to keep their kids safe and happy, but the online world has made that harder than ever,” said Starmer in a statement. “I’ve heard firsthand from families crying out for change, and we will do right by them.”

The ban will impact platforms including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Snap and X. It’s not designed to stop under-16s from using messaging services such as WhatsApp and Signal.

Growing awareness of the harms children can be exposed to via social media, as well as the potential mental health problems it causes or exacerbates, has sparked a number of countries to mull banning social media for teens, with Australia leading the way. The country brought in age restrictions for social media at the end of 2025, serving as an experimental testbed for other nations around the world. The UK said it will borrow from Australia’s learnings, using highly effective age assurance to prevent children from bypassing safeguards.

The UK’s restrictions will go further than Australia by including a blanket ban on any services with live-streaming functions and stranger communication, which will also place restrictions on gaming sites, said Starmer. Blocks on live streaming and stranger communication will also be on by default for children under the age of 17, to prevent a cliff edge at 16, he added.

“We’re going further than any country in the world by banning social media for under-16s and putting wider protections in place to give kids their childhood back,” said Starmer. “This is a line in the sand. 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.”

Any romantic companion AI chatbots designed to simulate sexual relationships or roleplay with users will need to enforce a minimum age of 18. The goverment is also currently looking into overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for under-18s, with more details set to be announced in July.

How are social media services responding?

Starmer’s announcement comes just one week after he gave tech companies three months to prevent children from taking, sending and receiving nude images. Taken together with the Online Safety Act, which requires all online services that could expose children to harmful content to verify people’s ages, the UK’s rules form some of the tightest global restrictions facing big tech companies.

They’re all designed to keep children safe, but the platforms have a different perspective. Responding to Starmer’s announcement on Monday, some companies pointed out that banning mainstream platforms could push children towards less regulated, less safe parts of the internet.

“We share the government’s objective of protecting young people from online harm,” said a spokesperson for Chat. “However, 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.”

Perhaps the most controversial service to be included in the list of platforms the government plans to ban for under-16s is YouTube, which is used in many households and schools. 

“We’ve invested in expert-led, age-appropriate experiences and default protections for teens for over a decade and will continue to do so,” said a YouTube spokesperson. “YouTube is a vital resource for young people, parents and educators. Blanket bans push kids out of such curated, supervised, beneficial experiences and towards anonymous, less safe services.”

Spokespeople for the other social media platforms listed in the announcement didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.

Social media companies are not alone in expressing their concerns over the ban. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), also said on Monday that the ban may be misguided. 

“While driven by good intentions, a blanket ban on teenagers accessing social media platforms just doesn’t stack up as the answer to keeping children safe online,” said Chris Sherwood, the organization’s CEO in a blog post. “For countless young people, social media can be a lifeline. A place where isolated teenagers find community, where LGBTQ+ young people find acceptance and where neurodiverse children find ways to learn and connect.”

If children are forced to hide their social media use from their parents, they’re less likely to be honest when something goes wrong, such as being the victim of bullying or grooming, he added. “That is a gift to abusers, not a safeguard for children.”

Children’s right to connection and having a say in how they should be able to participate in the digital world shouldn’t be stripped away because of tech companies’ inability to keep them safe, said Sherwood. Instead, the onus should fall on tech companies to prioritize the wellbeing of young people over engagement metrics, with regulators holding them to account.

His sentiments were echoed by Kerry Moscogiuri, Chief Executive of Amnesty International UK, who called the ban “the right diagnosis but the wrong prescription.”

“You cannot solve a design problem with an access ban,” she said. “If the diagnosis is that social media platforms are harming children, the remedy should be to regulate the platforms, not exclude children.”