Streeting presses Starmer on child online safety

Wes Streeting has intensified pressure on Keir Starmer to impose tougher curbs on children’s access to social media, warning that Britain’s current approach to mobile phones and online platforms amounts to “giving children a hammer and saw” without enough protection from the harm they can cause.

The former health secretary, who quit government this month after accusing Starmer of lacking the ambition needed to improve Britain, said ministers had been too cautious in responding to evidence of harm linked to addictive platform design, personalised feeds and weak age checks. His intervention came as the government’s consultation on children’s online lives closed, with Downing Street signalling that new restrictions affecting teenagers would follow swiftly.

Streeting has argued that social media should be treated more like tobacco because of its addictive qualities and the commercial incentives that encourage companies to keep young users online for longer. He said a ban on some platforms for under-16s should mark the beginning of reform rather than the end, with further action needed against algorithms and design features built to maximise attention.

Starmer has said the question is no longer whether ministers should act, but how far they should go. Options under consideration include an Australia-style ban on social media access for under-16s, age limits on specific platform features, restrictions on livestreaming and location sharing, curbs on infinite scrolling and personalised recommendation systems, and possible screen curfews for younger users.

The debate has sharpened because current law does not set a formal minimum age for social media use in Britain. Most major platforms set their own minimum age at 13, but enforcement remains inconsistent. Children younger than that continue to use social media, video-sharing and messaging services in large numbers, often with little meaningful age verification.

Regulatory data has shown that 84 per cent of children aged eight to 12 use services that officially require users to be at least 13. Among 11- to 17-year-olds, nearly three-quarters have been exposed to harmful content over a four-week period, with personalised feeds identified as a central route by which children encounter damaging material. YouTube and TikTok remain among the dominant services used by children, while Instagram, Snapchat and Roblox are also key players in the policy discussion.

The Online Safety Act already places duties on platforms to protect children from harmful material, including content relating to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders and pornography. But ministers and campaigners are now debating whether those duties go far enough, particularly where platforms are not clearly required to keep underage users away from services whose rules say they should not be there.

Part of the political pressure has come from bereaved parents whose children died after exposure to damaging online content or dangerous online behaviour. Some are calling for a full age-based ban, while others favour a model under which platforms would have to prove they are safe before they can offer services to under-16s. That approach would put the burden on technology companies rather than families, schools or children themselves.

Campaigners including child safety organisations, medical groups and online harm charities have pushed for stronger controls on features that encourage prolonged use. Their concern is that a simple age ban could create a false sense of safety if the underlying platform design remains unchanged. They argue that advertising, profiling, push notifications, autoplay, infinite scrolling and opaque recommendation systems are at the centre of the problem.

Opponents of a blanket ban say it could be hard to enforce, encourage children to evade rules, push some users towards less visible parts of the internet and cut off young people who rely on online platforms for friendship, learning, identity and support. Teenagers consulted by charities have also argued that adults often underestimate the complexity of social media use and risk punishing young users instead of holding companies accountable.

Technology companies have defended their safety systems, pointing to parental controls, teen account settings, content moderation and age-assurance tools. Some platforms have pledged stronger protections, including wider age checks, default limits on adult contact with children, new parental controls and AI tools to detect suspicious interactions. Regulators have nonetheless said major services have not yet done enough to make personalised feeds safe for children.