Keir Starmer announced on Monday that the UK government will ban under-16s from using major social media platforms, setting up a sweeping new restriction on Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. Ministers want the rules in place by next spring.
The move reaches beyond social media. The plan also covers online products such as gaming apps, with separate restrictions on chatting to strangers, livestreaming and the use of romantic chatbots designed to simulate sexual relationships for under-18s. In practical terms, that means the government is not just targeting where teenagers post, but how they move through a wider online world.
Starmer cast the ban as a response to what children are already living with. He said social media is making children unhappy, making it easier for bullies to harass and abuse them, and could even be harming their mental health. He also insisted the plan is not anti-tech, saying he does not accept that people cannot be both pro tech and AI while still protecting children.
The companies named in the plan pushed back fast. Meta said bans risk isolating teens from online communities and driving them to unregulated alternatives that lack built-in protections and parental controls. YouTube warned that blanket bans push children out of supervised, beneficial experiences and towards anonymous, less-safe services. Snapchat said an outright ban may simply send teenagers to less safe platforms. That criticism lands on the central weak point of the policy: no one has yet said how the ban will be enforced if the apps themselves remain a download away.
Starmer said he will not pretend the move is cost-free and called a total ban the right choice. He compared it to the way society treats alcohol sales to children, arguing that rules also express values and shape expectations over time. Campaigners, many of them bereaved parents, welcomed the announcement and said social media played a role in their children’s deaths.
The next test is not the politics but the mechanics. Ministers say they want the restrictions enacted by next spring, but the government still has to show how it will keep under-16s off the named platforms and how far the separate limits on gaming apps and other online products will reach. Until that is set out, the promise is clear; the enforcement is not.
