{"id":638508,"date":"2026-06-14T16:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T16:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/638508\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T16:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T16:40:08","slug":"starmer-to-announce-australia-plus-ban-on-social-media-for-under-16s-social-media-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/638508\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer to announce \u2018Australia plus\u2019 ban on social media for under-16s | Social media ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

Keir Starmer will ban under-16s from major social media apps<\/a> such as TikTok, Instagram and X in sweeping restrictions described as \u201cAustralia plus\u201d, the Guardian understands.<\/p>\n

Teenagers will be banned from all the main social platforms, and online products that are not covered by the ban \u2013 such as gaming apps \u2013 will face new restrictions such as having the option to chat to strangers removed. There will also be restrictions for older teenagers up to the age of 18 that prevent \u201cscrolling\u201d late at night \u2013 after 8.30pm.<\/p>\n

Government sources said protecting teenagers from harmful addictive content, such as through infinite scrolling, as well as from contact with strangers, were the key drivers of the hardline measures. Under-18s will also be banned from accessing romantic or sexual AI chatbots. \u201cThere are no half measures here,\u201d a government source said.<\/p>\n

The government may need to legislate to enforce the ban and to give itself flexibility to adapt to new technology, though the Children\u2019s Wellbeing and Schools Act does give ministers some powers already.<\/p>\n

In Australia, which is already enforcing a ban, under-16s<\/a> are restricted from 10 major platforms: TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, X, Threads, Snapchat, Twitch and Kick. UK government sources indicated that the bans on major platforms would apply to a similar range of apps.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the government said that nine out of 10 parents backed a minimum age of 16 for accessing the apps in responses supplied to its \u201cgrowing up in the online world\u201d consultation.<\/p>\n

Nearly nine in 10 (88%) said fewer children would be exposed to inappropriate or harmful content. Almost two-thirds of young people who responded said restricting the high-risk features would make them safer online.<\/p>\n

Campaigners have been asking the prime minister to enforce some manner of social media ban. Photograph: David Parry\/PA<\/p>\n

On Sunday, the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy<\/a>, said restrictions on social media would not be \u201cthe silver bullet solution\u201d but they would better protect young people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to get ahead of the prime minister\u2019s announcement. But when we launched the consultation, it was a question of how we better protect young people online, not if we do so,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd one of the things that a social media ban does and has been shown to do in Australia is that \u2013 although it doesn\u2019t stop all young people going online and on to social media apps \u2013 it does mean that you \u2026 stop the situation where kids as young as eight, nine, 10, 11 are going on to social media sites because all of their friends are on them at an age when, frankly, they\u2019re not really emotionally equipped to be able to cope with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nandy added: \u201cI don\u2019t think banning social media on its own is the silver bullet solution, but I do think Australia has shown very clearly that it has a significant role to play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer will ban under-16s from major social media apps such as TikTok, Instagram and X in sweeping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-638508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}