UK declares under-16 social media ban to protect children, but experts warn of enforcement challenges

The U.K. will ban social media from offering services to under-16s, Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Monday, as governments around the world face mounting pressure to ensure child safety online.

The ban could include platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X, but exclude messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal. The first set of regulations could take effect as soon as spring 2027. 

The U.K. plans to model its approach on landmark Australian legislation passed late last year, but the country will go further by introducing additional restrictions on features deemed particularly harmful to children.

These include blocking livestreaming and communication with strangers for users under 16, while similar protections will be enabled by default for 16- and 17-year-olds. The government is also considering overnight curfews and measures to limit infinite scrolling for minors.

"We're going further than any country in the world by banning social media for under-16s and putting wider protections in place to give kids their childhood back," Starmer said in a statement.

Social media is making children unhappy and is designed to be addictive, Starmer said at a press conference. He didn't make the decision lightly and it will not be cost-free, he said, noting that social media had brought some benefits to young people.

The ban comes after the U.K. has seen a number of high-profile cases related to social media and self-harm, and amid mounting evidence of its harmful implications on young people.

Critics of social media bans argue that blanket bans are ineffective and will simply stifle access to age-appropriate experiences with parental controls, and that young people will find a way around the ban. For example, a BBC report found that downloads of VPNs in Australia, which hide users' locations to avoid country-specific restrictions, increased before the ban.

There were mixed reactions to the announcement, which took the social media ban further than other countries have so far. While some welcomed it as a good first step to ensure child online safety, others questioned the effectiveness of the measures.

The real question is whether it makes the regime stronger or simply harder to enforce, said Diane Mullenex, technology lawyer at the legal services firm Pinsent Masons. "Once ministers move beyond social media into livestreaming and chatbots more widely, the law becomes far more complex to police, especially where services are based overseas or can be accessed through VPNs," she said.

The ban comes as Starmer is facing increasing political pressure at home, with several ministers resigning, and mounting challenges to his premiership after disastrous local election results for his ruling Labour Party in May.

One politician threatening to topple Starmer's leadership is the Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who has called for tighter regulation on AI, Big Tech, and key industries if he returns to central government.

"Tech companies have had countless opportunities to keep children safe, yet they have failed to act. That is why we are taking power away from the tech giants and putting it back in parents' hands," said Technology Secretary Liz Kendall.

A YouTube spokesperson told CNBC it's invested in "expert-led, age-appropriate experiences and default protections for teens" and that "blanket bans push kids out of such curated, supervised, beneficial experiences and towards anonymous, less safe services." YouTube is owned by Google-parent Alphabet.

A Meta spokesperson said that bans risk isolating teenagers from online communities and information, driving them to unregulated alternatives. They said restrictions must be underpinned by age verification systems to be effective.

Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, has introduced Teen Accounts, which feature built-in safety profiles automatically applied to users under 18.

Starmer said he spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday and would see him again this afternoon for the G7 meeting, and that they would discuss "this and many other issues."

"The new proposals risk muddying the waters on online protection of children," said Giulia Carloni, senior associate at Winston Taylor.

Not waiting to see whether the existing legislation, such as the Online Safety Act which places a duty of care on tech companies to protect children from harmful content, is working, could create confusion and be damaging as regulators and public bodies will have to change recently formed policies and create new ones, she said.

"It may also create a vacuum period during which tech companies will not know what safety measures to invest in, pending more detail on the new ban," Carloni added.

— CNBC's Kai Nicol-Schwarz and Sawdah Bhaimiya contributed to this report.