Sir Keir Starmer is set to announce sweeping reforms tomorrow banning under-16s from 10 major social media platforms, including X, but not the Left-wing platform Bluesky. In addition, he will introduce daily curfews for 16 and 17 year-olds, going further than Australia’s restrictions. The Times has the story:
Teenagers will be banned from certain social media platforms and have their daily usage curbed under sweeping reforms to be announced by Sir Keir Starmer on Sunday.
The ban will go further than the one imposed by Australia in December by targeting technology deemed harmful to children, including chatbots and certain features on gaming apps.
Under-16s in Australia have been banned from using ten platforms: TikTok, Instagram, Threads, Facebook, X, YouTube, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch and Kick. It is understood that the UK will follow suit by raising the minimum age on social media to 16, from the average of 13, for the same ten sites.
Curfews for older teenagers will be introduced. Daily social media use will be restricted for 16 and 17 year-olds in a move designed to curb unhealthy late-night scrolling habits.
A Government source said: “Keir has been clear we need a game-changer to keep our children — and future generations — safe online.”
The reforms, which come two weeks after a public consultation on potential restrictions closed, will stop short of banning the messaging platform WhatsApp and apps considered to have educational value. However, the government will go further than Australia and introduce restrictions on romantic or sexual chatbots after several legal cases involving the AI agents mimicking relationships and encouraging children to take their own lives.
Kanishka Narayan, the online safety minister, has said the government — which will also give 16 and 17 year-olds the right to vote — could block conversations between children and strangers on gaming platforms.
The Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act, which was passed in April, gave ministers the ability to introduce measures to restrict harmful features on online services without needing to pass new laws. It is not clear when the ban will come into force or how effectively the government will be able to enforce it.
The 10 social media apps under-16s will be banned from are:
- X
- TikTok
- YouTube
- Snapchat
- Twitch
- Kick
- Threads
How could the Government have digested the 116,000 responses to its consultation about restricting social media access for children just two weeks after the consultation closed? Hard not to agree with Ian Russell, the father of Molly, 14, who took her own life after viewing harmful content online, who has accused Starmer of “playing politics” by rushing out the ban.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Starmer wants social media companies to enforce his ban on under-16s accessing them using face scanning technology. What could possibly go wrong? The Telegraph has more.
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Starmer has to be one of the biggest most erect knobs in the history of biggest most erect knobs.
Here’s an idea – the parents stop their children using social media.
I have written to my mp to ask why blur sky isn’t included.
i object to everything being banned except the government propaganda platform.
either it is harmful, n which case ban every platform until they are eighteen, or it is not, in which case don’t ban any.
picking and choosing those platforms that disagree with you is not acceptable in what is supposed to be a democracy
Innovation – using current technology to produce a new use of value and benefit.
An incentive now exists to create the next generation of social media unaffected by the idiots in charge.
Has there been a law passed by Parliament (House and Lords) to support this?
No, of course not.
The quote from The Times says:
It seems to be common trick now for governments to pass bills that include this kind of provision, meaning they can then issue all kinds of orders and restrictions without any further need for a mandate from Parliament.
If you read the Act there will be a statement that says ‘the Secretary of State may [optional] make regulations’ which are secondary legislation Statutory Instruments. These can be subject to a vote in the Commons but in most cases not. Having Regulations does mean that the Acts are a lot shorter than if all the detail of the Regulations were included.
“Other methods set out by Ofcom, the regulator, include digital IDs, credit cards, open banking, passports, phone company age checks and email age estimation, where a person’s email usage is analysed…”
Ah, so let me break this down…
Know what my response is? Two words, first one sounds like “duck”.
What happens when adults hand over their phones to their chidren Keir??. Starmer would give Muppets a bad name.
Presumably that’s where facial recognition kicks in…
Your average teenager will find a way around this in about 30 seconds.
Its Digital Id , just pretending its to safeguard children,because a generation that grew up with computers wont have a clue how to bypass anything, will they?, and yet same under threat teenagers will be allowed to vote, just what the Left tell them to though,
Cloud cookoo land. Firstly, I’m currently taking bets on how long it will take my tech savvy grandchildren to find a workaround. About 10 minutes if the authorities are lucky. My 14 year old autistic granddaughter has her own YouTube channel where she produces animated cartoon shorts and has several thousand teenage followers. I expect she will have emigrated to another country by lunchtime on the day that piece of tyranny hits the statute books. And good for her! She has put her heart and soul into that site and to take it away from her would destroy her world, take away her safe space and do incalculable harm to her mental health. So Mr Starmer, you can take that piece of ill thought out tyranny and put it where the sun doesn’t shine! We won’t be complying in our family!
Funny how Bluesky is not on the list, the most left leaning social network.
But you can join the UK armed forces at 16 years old…
bluesky is infested but slips through. How odd.
And then at one minute after they turn 16 they can vote. The only information they will have had will have been from political class adjacent sources and Bluesky. Their opinions will have been moulded years before by left wing teachers.
Surely FSU will challenge this.
If facial recognition or some digital ID is how they intend to police tbis then that’s youtube out the window for me too, unless I get a VPN. There’s no way I’m creating a digital ID, they can GTF.
The mask slips very obviously by the omission of bluesky.
I have a Youtube Premium subscription, and it’s paid via a credit card, so therefore I must be over 16 as I have to be over 18 to have a credit card.
Not that I really want to be age profiled either.
If Starmer wants 16 and 17 year olds to have their Internet restricted presumably because they are still children, then why does he think that they are old enough to vote.
He thinks they can be told how to vote. I suspect he or ‘Andy’ will get a shock.
It’s because teenagers are more easily sold the idea of a socialist utopia. It’s only when they’ve got a few years of adulthood behind them that the flaws in socialism start to become apparent. But it’s very difficult to get voters to change entrenched voting behaviour. The sooner the Left can get them hooked, the better (though not for the country as a whole).
The people he is now banning will be old enough to vote next election. It is unlikely they will feel kindly disposed to Labour who banned them.
The Marxists are going to police this with facial recognition: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/06/14/face-scans-enforce-social-media-ban-under-16s/
I keep getting told I’m a mad conspiracy theorist, but it’s funny because the more mad and conspiratorial I get the more hats people have to eat.
One more thing to add to the long list of things Starmer can shove up his arse
http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=5K9rwr6YO3c
Our glorious leader is going to impose curfews on sixteen and seventeen year olds? What is he going round every house in the country to make sure they are all at home and tucked up in bed by a certain time each night? Or is it some other kind of curfew that is being discussed.
Presumably he won’t want them to vote without family assistance? Oh, I forgot that’s not permitted, so the state will have to step in instead won’t it.
The thought of two tier tucking up children in bed is terrifying.
What happened to the story concerning his two rent-boys? Officially suppressed?
Bluesky is where all the pedos and trans wankers went.
Go figure.
Agreed.
But when Bluesky gets an influx of pissed-off teenagers it might change it quite a lot.
I think that what will actually happen is a game of whack-a-mole with instances of Mastodon being set up in different jurisdictions and fads and fashions among the young flocking from one to another. The great thing about Mastodon is that it’s decentralised so it’s difficult to shut down – but that’s a bad thing if you’re trying to make money out of it.
Trump’s ‘Truth Social’ is based on Mastodon but it’s been slightly modified.
I wonder what this will do to the bias of stuff on Bluesky?
Sorry, where?
Quite. I have never used social media but can’t help wondering what’s to prevent “right thinking” teenagers from using Bluesky.
They can’t – they have to be “left thinking” or not allowed access.
Correction: the ban will go further than the one imposed by Australia in December by targeting technology deemed
harmful to children, harmful to our anti-white and anglophobic government.As others have noted, this means every request to these “banned” sites will be inspected, regardless of age. Not just to filter out “old” people for blocking, but probably as the deep state can’t resist, tracking everyone all the time.
Most under 16’s are pretty tech savvy and will hopefully be easily able to work round any restrictions on free speech.
Nanny Two-Tier knows worst.
So everyone will have to verify their age and identity thus creating Digital IDs by stealth.
Not if they seem to be based in the US or somewhere with fewer restrictions (via VPN). Of course, Ofcom has already mentioned that VPNs are a ‘problem’ to be dealt with – the state/citizen arms race will hot up even more.
I may be spending a lot of time in the US.. /sarc
Exactly my phone now requires me to upload ID to prove I am over 18. As with all the legislation it makes our lives more difficult and never touches those who behave badly.
VPNs will make a killing.
Vice Promotion Networks?
I use TOR, the VPN supported by the American Government to enable those in communist countries to communicate. It’s great, it’s free, and it’s 100% reliable, guaranteed.