The Prime Minister is preparing to announce a ban on social media for children under 16, his team informed the press on Monday (8 June). This was, according to Timesa “last ditch effort to win over Labor MPs before Andy Burnham’s possible return to parliament”. If that was the hope, it may backfire. Neither the content nor the timing of this anonymous conference can speak to Sir Keir Starmer who is a staunch politician committed to well thought out and evidence based policy making.
Why would Starmer’s team choose to inform a yet-to-be-made policy announcement when the govt. in fact to do anything else, it’s totally weird. At the same time, it was confirmed that phone companies such as Apple and Google will be given three months to comply with requirements that their devices include technology that makes it impossible for children to receive, share or view nude images. Such action could be a game changer in child protection. It is thought that 91 percent of online child sexual abuse stems from self-generated content – images that young people take of themselves.
Asking for this technology to be included in phones is extremely achievable. The capability already exists. “Apple and Android already have the ability to detect nude images, to detect nudity,” Victims Minister Catherine Atkinson. told the BBCS ‘ World in One. “He can recognize genitalia, buttocks and breasts.” It can then block the device from receiving the image altogether. “I’ve literally seen it work with my own eyes,” Jess Phillips, former minister for protection and violence against women and girls, told the same program. Phillips resigned last month in part because of Starmer’s inability to legislate in this area. In it letter of resignationshe accused the prime minister of leaving the children “without a safety net” because he was too “worried about tech bosses”. Phillips had submitted the same proposal more than a year earlier.
Like many others during his tenure as Prime Minister, Starmer had to be dragged kicking and screaming to do so. So, too, with any possible ban on the use of social media for under 16s. The idea that he now wants to make such a move his “legacy” is laughable. It is understood that until January, when more than 60 Labor MPs signed an open letter calling for a ban, the Prime Minister was not in favour. He had barely dealt with the matter at all. His children valued social media, he told MPs, and he couldn’t see the problem.
Starmer’s mind is said to have been changed by two things: a meeting last month (May) with deceased parents of children whose deaths were linked to social media and, according to Timesfrom “survey evidence from Australia”, which brought about such a ban in December 2025. Ten platforms – including Tiktok, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat – are covered by Australian law.
What is this powerful, compelling evidence? I haven’t been able to find it. Just last week, the woman responsible for delivering the policy – Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant – he told reporters the legislation had been a “very open force approach” that was drafted very quickly. She likened the under-16 age verification laws to trying to “fence the ocean”. it first official report how the ban worked in March showed major problems. Most of the children remained on the platforms that were supposed to be off-limits and had been no apparent difference in cyberbullying or image-based abuse reported by children.
Early studies have similarly suggested the ban hasn’t worked yet. Research, published by Australian university academics in May, surveyed 1,027 young people aged 10 to 17. Six in ten (61 per cent) of young people under 16 who had previously used the now-banned platforms reported little or no change in their use of social media. “For the majority of young people surveyed, the ban was ineffective”, he said the researchers concluded. Only a quarter of children said their use of social media had been affected by the change in the law.
To make matters worse, the research showed that the ban had a negative impact. Young people were becoming less engaged with the real world. For children whose social media use had been significantly disrupted by the ban, half (51 percent) said they were now getting much less news.
Research conducted by The Molly Rose Foundation in March 2026 made similar findings. It also found that three in five (61 per cent) Australians aged 12-15 who had accounts on restricted platforms before the ban came in still had access afterwards. Ian Russell, Molly Rose’s father, appears to be in a minority of bereaved families warning against an outright ban. But, as he rightly points out, there is agreement that the current situation is harmful to our children. It cannot and must not continue. “Parents are united that change is needed to protect children from terrible harm onlinehe argues. The question is how best to do this. Russell wants action that addresses the “addictive and dangerous design” of many social media sites and apps as a priority. There is danger in rushing to a ban that “offers the perception of safety but is leaving children in the practice,” he warns.
It is too early to say whether Australia’s social media ban will work in time, but as it stands, there is much to suggest caution in copying such a model. It is unclear to me why the government would rush to legislate before the results of both studies in the United Kingdom were also analyzed. one, which includes 4000 12-15 year oldswill not report until 2027.
I can’t help but think that while obviously well-intentioned, it’s naive to think that a simple, open-source tool can solve this ingrained and damaging problem. This does not mean doing nothing. Cracking down on online child sexual exploitation is a strong first step. More should follow that target the way social media sites and apps work. Children, frankly, shouldn’t be fed any content via the algorithm that they (or their parents) haven’t explicitly chosen to see. As Phillips said, watching a video about fast cars shouldn’t make you end up in Andrew Tate.
Banning social media for children under 16 has broad public support. The same happened in Australia. It’s understandable why Keir Starmer is caught up in it. It can be a useful part of an arsenal of actions needed to combat the dire mental health and loneliness of a generation of young people. But I’m not convinced it’s the quick fix many are portraying it to be, and that this now ailing politician believes will give him a lasting legacy. The truth is definitely more complicated. We need to look at ourselves as parents, at society in general to ask why our children are so unhappy. Yes, the tech giants who value profit over security and defense are responsible, but so are we.
(Further reading: Nick Clegg has no regrets about the AI revolution)
