The British government Plans Teens under 16 will be banned from using disappearing messages, live streaming and romantic or sexual AI chatbots as part of a new online safety package for children, according to reports on Friday. Prime Minister Keir Starmer will set out the plans on Monday, but ministers will outline which specific platforms will be subject to a ban for under-16s at a later date.
Under the plans, young people under 16 will face restrictions on “high-risk” social media apps and certain features even on “safer” platforms. For under-16s, these risky features include disappearing messages, chats with adult strangers and livestreaming, which ministers and law enforcement have linked to grooming and child sexual abuse.
The plans ban under-18s from using romantic or sexual AI chatbots and build on previous plans to crack down on AI-generated “nudity”. Starmer warned that he will legislate if tech companies don’t act within three months, and those rules will sit alongside proposed device-level controls to prevent minors from viewing or sharing nude images.
These measures build on a national consultation A study on children’s use of social media and smartphones began in January. The consultation looks at options such as raising the age of digital consent, introducing phone curfews to prevent excessive use and limiting potentially addictive design features such as streaks and infinite scrolling. Before June 2nd, The Govt receive More than 116,000 responses to the consultation and nine in 10 parents expressed support for a ban on children under 16.
However, Scotland’s Children’s Commissioner Nicola Killean argued There is insufficient evidence that a ban on social media for children under 16 would improve children’s safety and warns that such a ban could push children into less regulated or more dangerous areas of the internet. “A ban does little to address fundamental problems such as exploitative algorithms and business models that drive harmful content and engagement,” she said.
Critics claim that similar blanket restrictions are driving children’s online activity underground. In December, Australia introduced a nationwide ban banning children under 16 from having accounts on major social media platforms. Amnesty International criticized the measure as an “ineffective quick fix” that would not prevent online harm. Amnesty argues that such restrictions could violate children’s rights to freedom of expression and do not address the underlying problems, namely the platform’s harmful business model, which aims to maximize engagement through data exploitation.
