Labour MP Says Potential Social Media Ban Must Be Compatible With Votes For 16-Year-Olds
The government has launched a consultation on whether the UK should follow Australia's lead in banning social media for under-16s (Alamy)
5 min read
A Labour MP has warned that plans to expand the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds must be factored into the government’s consultation on a potential ban on social media for under-16s.
On Monday, ministers launched a consultation into whether to ban under-16s from using social media, which will also consider other options to curb mobile phone use among young people.
However, if the UK goes ahead with a ban on under-16s from using major social media platforms, this could mean that 16-year-olds would be going to the ballot box having had very little access to major digital sources of news and information.
In July last year, the government announced it would expand the voting age to include 16 to 17-year-olds by the next general election, a pledge that had been included in Labour’s general election manifesto. It is set to be included in the forthcoming elections bill.
Backbench Labour MP Josh Dean told PoliticsHome that while he was open to a social media ban for under-16s, the policy would need to be compatible with votes for 16-year-olds.
“There's a wider point around considering the wider policy picture,” he said.
“When we're talking about a potential ban on social media, also considering how that interacts with policies like votes for 16-year-olds, which I'm hugely supportive of and have campaigned for since I was 16.
“Young people will have thoughts and views on that too, particularly on how they consume information. Their voices really must be a part of the process as well.”
Dean, now 26 years old, was 24 when he was elected in 2024, and said that tackling poor mental health among young people was his primary motivation for entering politics.
While he described himself as “sympathetic” to the idea of an overall ban on social media for under-16s, he said he was keen to first look at the impact of the ban in Australia – which was only implemented in December.
He added that if the government does decide to go ahead with a ban, it would need to “take young people with them”, warning against a situation where teenagers feel like an unfair and counterproductive ban is being imposed upon them.
“When I go and speak to young people in my constituency, they are alive to the impact that social media has on them, they are not naive to it,” he said.
“[We need to] consider how the wider policies interact with one another, because talking more about media literacy, embedding that in education, is really, really important.”
The government consultation will include taking views from children and young people themselves, as well as parents, the organisations representing children and bereaved parents, and technology companies.
Dean is also hosting roundtables with parents, teachers, and young people in his own constituency of Hertford and Stortford – a process many other MPs are also carrying out, as well as posting polls and callouts for opinions on their social media channels.
More than 60 Labour MPs recently wrote to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, urging him to back an under-16s social media ban, and peers are due to vote on the issue in the House of Lords on Wednesday. An amendment to the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill pushing for a ban, tabled by Conservative peer John Nash, is seen as having a good chance of passing later today.
Last week, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said her party would introduce an under-16s social media ban if it won the next general election.
Multiple backbench Labour MPs told PoliticsHome they are under considerable pressure from constituents on the issue, having been deluged with thousands of emails from members of the public calling for the ban. Recent polling has found the idea to be popular with the general public.
Dean acknowledged that the political pressure for a ban has been building at a time when MPs feel the government needs to hold large technology companies to account for online harms against children.
“As we've come into the new year, particularly with what's happened on X and with Grok in recent weeks, it's thrown a lot of things into the spotlight, and rightly so,” he said.
While some high-profile figures, including Esther Ghey, the mother of the murdered teenager Brianna Ghey, support a ban, many children’s online safety advocacy groups, such as the NSPCC and the Molly Rose Foundation, have warned that a blanket ban could lead to unintended consequences that could harm children further.
Mark Frankel, head of public affairs for fact-checking charity Full Fact, said: “The intention may be to enhance children’s wellbeing online, but any proposal to ban social media for under-16s is likely to have other detrimental consequences.
“Who is going to step in to help school students with digital and media literacy as they approach voting age? And how will young people be expected to develop a deeper understanding of our online world and the critical thinking skills to determine fact from fiction without access to social media?”
A survey of state school teachers, conducted early last year and reported by PoliticsHome, found that a large majority believed the national curriculum did not provide sufficient political education to prepare students for a lower voting age.
