UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is preparing to announce a ban on social media use for children under 16 within days, after a government consultation found nine in ten parents supported the measure. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall confirmed the consultation findings on Friday. The announcement is expected before the Makerfield by-election on June 18.
The government is considering two options. One would impose a blanket ban on users under 16 across all social media platforms. The other would restrict access to specific features rather than the platforms themselves, placing age-gating on algorithmic feeds, direct messaging, and content discovery tools. No final decision on which approach to adopt has been made public, but sources close to Starmer’s office indicated a preference for a clearer, harder rule.
The move follows Australia’s introduction of a near-total social media ban for under-16s in December 2025, which passed into law despite initial resistance from major technology companies. Australia’s law requires platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent underage access and imposes substantial fines for non-compliance. Starmer has cited the Australian model publicly on more than one occasion in recent months as a benchmark Britain might follow.
Major platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube have been given an ultimatum by the UK government, according to The National, which reported that Starmer demanded platforms show concrete steps toward age verification within a defined timeframe or face legislation. Technology companies have historically resisted hard age restrictions, arguing that effective enforcement is technically difficult without collecting sensitive identity data from minors.
Child safety campaigners welcomed the coming announcement. Several organisations have pressed the government to act since the inquest into the death of Molly Russell, a 14-year-old who took her own life in 2017 after prolonged exposure to self-harm content on Instagram. That inquest, which concluded in 2022, found that the content she was shown had contributed to her death.
The announcement will arrive as part of a broader technology and AI legislative package the Starmer government has been assembling since taking office in July 2024. The Online Safety Act, passed under the previous Conservative government, already imposed duties on platforms to protect children, but critics argued it left enforcement too vague. A harder age restriction would go further than anything currently required under that law. Apple’s iOS parental controls have been flagged by the government as an example of how device-level age restriction could support platform-level rules. Major messaging platforms are watching the UK move closely, given that legislation passed here tends to influence regulation elsewhere in Europe. The full consultation results were published by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. Starmer is expected to make the announcement in a major public speech early next week.
