U.K. announces plan to ban social media for children under 16
London — The United Kingdom is the latest country to announce plans to ban children under 16 from using social media apps.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday that the U.K. would go even further than other nations, by also blocking children from accessing "harmful functions" such as livestreaming and the ability to communicate with strangers, and by extending the restrictions to gaming sites. He said the ban would protect children from content that is "designed to be addictive."
The proposed law would bar children under 16 from platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, but the government said messaging services like WhatsApp would still be accessible.
People under 18 would also be banned from having artificial intelligence "romantic companions," but the details of that restriction and how it might be implemented remained unclear.
The legislation would put the onus on tech companies to ensure children aren't using their platforms, and they could face huge fines for failing to comply. Starmer said he hoped to have the regulations passed by lawmakers by late December so the ban can come into force by the spring of 2027.
Australia banned under-16s from social media in December 2025 — the first country to impose such a measure. But around 70% of parents polled by Australia's internet regulator in March said their children remained on the platforms, having found ways to bypass age-gating systems.
Starmer said he wasn't deterred by such challenges.
"We don't say: 'Oh, look, a teenager managed to get a drink somehow, so let's not bother banning drinks from children.' That would be utterly ridiculous!"
Big tech companies are likely to fight the effort, and the U.S. Embassy in London published a notice about the proposed restrictions 10 days ago, voicing concern that age-gating would not work and calling for children to be protected in other ways while freedom of speech is preserved.
The embassy called parents "the first and best line of defense" for children.
Starmer and his government note, however, that polling shows British parents overwhelmingly support a ban for under 16s.
In March, a Los Angeles jury ruled that Meta and YouTube were liable for creating products that led to harmful and addictive behavior by young users. The landmark decision in the U.S. could set a legal precedent for similar allegations brought against social media companies.
More than a dozen other countries, including France, Denmark and Malaysia, were already weighing up legislation to restrict children's access to social media platforms before the U.K. announced its plans.
Ireland is among those nations, but as CBS News learned recently, in one small town on the Emerald Isle, residents have already gone much further on their own — taking smartphones away from kids entirely.
