The United Kingdom will require social media companies to implement a default block for adolescent users aged 16 and 17 at certain hours, the country’s Department for Science, Innovation & Technology revealed on Tuesday evening.
This automatic new curfew would theoretically lock older teens out of social platforms between the hours of midnight and 6 am—though the feature can be turned off. The nonmandatory restriction is to be imposed along with a looming total ban on these services for children under 16, expected to come into force in spring 2027. Both measures come after the Online Safety Act, a controversial set of laws that requires platforms hosting pornography and other material considered potentially harmful to children to verify that their users are 18 or older.
Young Brits will also see a “crackdown” on “addictive” features of social apps, the DSIT said in a news release, including “videos that automatically play one after another and feeds that continually serve up personalized content.” These mechanisms will “be switched off by default for older teenagers,” according to a statement from the department. However, people will also be able to override those.
The first full set of social media regulations will be put to Parliament later this year before taking effect in 2027.
The DSIT said the latest set of proposed regulations are meant to “help ensure there is no cliff edge in protections as young people move into their later teenage years,” as future youths will hypothetically have no experience with social media before that age, thanks to the constraints imposed on apps and websites by the Online Safety Act.
“These measures will be crucial in helping young people get the sleep they need, focus on school and college, and spend more quality time with family and friends, all of which are fundamental to building a happy, healthy, and fulfilling adult life,” said UK Technology Secretary Liz Kendall in a statement about the new measures.
“We want young people to enjoy the benefits of technology while having the tools to make the online world a place where they can thrive,” Kendall said.
The DSIT further signaled that Kendall aims to bring forth additional protections around artificial intelligence, including mandated chatbot breaks for children under 18, who are already set to be blocked from AI platforms that can imitate romantic conversations. Regulators will be charged with reining in services that provide “dangerous, misleading, or unverified mental health advice,” with the department warning that chatbots found to “pose a serious threat” to UK youths may be banned altogether.
Finally, the government is seeking to bolster children’s media literacy with updated school curricula covering AI, technological bias, and mis- and disinformation, as well as strategies for identifying violent and misogynist content.
In recent years, as tech giants faced a wave of major lawsuits and alarming research related to the potential negative effects of social media on younger users, advocates mobilized worldwide to push for broad age limits on these platforms, with parents and politicians often concurring on the need for such protections. The UK government, for example, has found that about 9 in 10 parents there “support a legal requirement for social media services to have a minimum age of access.” A Pew Research Center survey published this month found that 56 percent of American adults would likewise back a ban on social media for those under 16.
But groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International and GLAAD have sharply criticized this type of “age-gating,” arguing that it’s an oversimplified solution that curtails the rights to open information and free speech. They point out that lawmakers can use these restrictions to censor sex education and LGBTQ resources that are of critical value to teens.
Then there’s the question of whether this regulation even works. In Australia, which in December became the first nation to ban children under 16 from a slew of popular social media apps, leading to the removal of some 5 million accounts within a month, early research has shown that around 75 percent of 14- to 15-year-olds are circumventing the age limit. The country’s government is investigating the alleged noncompliance of Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube as it struggles to enforce the law, and it now plans to double the fines for platforms in violation, though it has yet to collect any.
For the UK, which has been quite explicit about adopting the “same model” as Australia to keep kids off social media, similar problems may lie ahead.
Update, July 14 at 7:00 pm: This story was updated to correct the full name of the EFF. It’s the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
