The most recent authorities measure geared toward curbing digital hurt comes after an under-16 social media ban was introduced final month.
Revealed On 16 Jul 2026
The UK has proposed an in a single day social media curfew for older youngsters as a part of the federal government’s newest push to guard minors from digital hurt, although customers will likely be permitted to bypass the restrictions.
The Labour administration introduced the plans on Wednesday, outlining a six-hour default lockout from midnight to 6am for 16- and 17-year-olds on platforms equivalent to Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
Below the proposal, extremely participating mechanisms, equivalent to autoplay movies and infinite scrolling, would even be deactivated by default for this age group to encourage higher sleep and focus.
The initiative follows a June announcement by outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who unveiled a blanket ban on social media for kids beneath 16 slated to take impact in 2027.
Whereas the youthful cohort faces a strict prohibition on main networks, ministers selected a softer strategy for older adolescents.
The UK’s restrictions replicate a quickly rising international crackdown on younger individuals’s social media entry. Australia made waves in December by enacting a world-first ban on social media for under-16s, which its authorities is already trying to tighten following research exhibiting that many youngsters simply bypass the restrictions.
The ban, which got here into power on December 10, made Australia a global test case for international locations attempting to curb youngsters’s entry to social media.
Defending the voluntary nature of the curfew, UK Secretary for On-line Security Kanishka Narayan rejected criticism that youngsters would merely disable the restrictions. He instructed Sky Information that the federal government needed to keep away from outright bans for older youngsters, aiming as an alternative for a “clean slope” into maturity.
“We need to empower our youngsters,” Narayan mentioned, citing information from a pilot scheme and former voluntary platform trials the place greater than 90 % of youngsters stored the restrictive default settings energetic.
“The proof base is evident, the motivation may be very clear, and I wouldn’t do the disservice to youngsters of claiming they’re all going to modify it off.”
Nevertheless, political opponents and youngster security advocates expressed scepticism in regards to the coverage’s efficacy.
Laura Trott, the training spokesperson for the opposition Conservative Social gathering, dismissed the plans as illogical.
“Both they assume 16- and 17-year-olds needs to be on social media or they don’t, however curfews they’ll merely swap off received’t obtain something,” Trott mentioned, in line with the Related Press information company.
The Nationwide Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Kids, a distinguished UK youngsters’s nonprofit, welcomed the event, however warned that it was a short lived repair.
Chief govt Chris Sherwood cautioned that except the federal government implements “additional, stronger measures”, the coverage will act solely as a “sticking plaster” that fails to deal with the deeply addictive algorithms driving extreme display screen time.
The proposals should nonetheless be formally legislated. As a result of they symbolize a number of the remaining legislative steps of Starmer’s administration, the accountability of implementing them is predicted to fall to his anticipated successor, Andy Burnham.
