Labour MP Says UK Should Look At Replicating Australia’s Under-16 Social Media Ban
Joani Reid was elected as the Labour MP for East Kilbride and Strathaven last year (Alamy)
7 min read
The chair of the Children’s Online Safety All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) has said the UK should consider following Australia’s lead and ban social media for under-16s if the policy proves successful.
From Wednesday, children aged under 16 in Australia will be banned from having accounts on many major social media platforms. The legal obligation will lie with the platforms to take “reasonable steps” to prevent under-16s from creating or keeping accounts.
While no such policy has been set out by the UK government, British policymakers, including Labour MP Joani Reid, will be keeping a close eye on how the Australian ban plays out.
Reid is the new chair of the Children’s Online Safety APPG. She told PoliticsHome that her instinct was to be in support of a similar ban for British children, as social media “harms outweigh the benefits for kids to quite a strong degree”.
“The principle of it is a fantastic thing, and if it is successful and implemented well, I hope that the government will look at it,” she continued.
“We're all going to be watching really, really closely… Good on Australia, it sends a really clear message, more than anything, that social media is inappropriate for children.”
Reid said she will be particularly interested to see how the ban in Australia impacts children's educational attainment and mental health, whether it reduces bullying, and whether kids find ways of getting around the ban.
She is not the first Labour MP to be broadly supportive of such a ban: her predecessor as APPG chair, Gregor Poynton – now a Labour whip – previously said he would support it, and co-chair of the Children APPG Jess Asato has called for the same, saying that “children deserve to have the best start in life, and that means growing up away from social media”.
It's really important that the kids themselves are part of this conversation
Fellow Labour MP Josh MacAlister put forward a Private Member’s Bill last year, which originally included a ban for under-16s, but then watered it down in order to get government support for other aspects of the bill. MacAlister is now the children’s minister.
Reid said that while former tech secretary Peter Kyle had not been “completely averse to the idea” last year, he was concerned about how such a law could be effectively implemented.
The Children’s Online Safety APPG has opened a new inquiry on AI harms and children’s online safety, and has put out a call for evidence on the impacts of AI on children, the role of AI in content moderation, and whether further regulation is needed to mitigate AI harms. For Reid, this evidence must include the voices of children themselves.
“There's such a disconnect between decision makers and the people that really understand it and are using it, i.e. children in their day-to-day lives,” she said.
“So it's really important that the kids themselves are part of this conversation and driving this so that we really do understand what the genuine risks are.”
She said she will push for this inquiry to include a wide range of factors, from AI child sexual abuse material to how AI is impacting children’s learning, brain development and school assessments. The MP said she was also concerned about how AI hallucinations could prevent children from being able to distinguish “proper facts” from misinformation and disinformation.
Multiple MPs have called for an Australia-style ban on social media for under-16s (Alamy)
The Online Safety Act, which came into force earlier this year, has given the online regulator Ofcom the powers to fine technology companies for not complying with online safety laws.
While Reid described the legislation as a “landmark step forward”, she said it “does not fully address the unique risks that AI poses and the way technology is developing.”
It currently focuses mostly on illegal content, leaving a significant regulatory gap around the large volume of legal but harmful material. In June, Ofcom launched a consultation on a targeted set of additional safety measures designed to make online services safer, including measures to prevent illegal content going viral, tackling harms at the source, and adding more protections for children in relation to livestreams. The regulator will publish a statement by Autumn 2026 after reviewing evidence.
However, there is widespread scepticism about Ofcom’s ability to even enforce the existing legislation.
It fined a pornography company £1m in July for failing to provide highly effective age assurance to prevent children accessing explicit content, but the BBC reported that Ofcom has not heard back from the company since it issued the fine.
“We're really pleased that Ofcom has used its powers to fine; it needs to do that more often,” Reid said.
“But what I'll be watching really closely is what happens if this company doesn't pay the fine… we want to see notices for closure. If we don't see it happening more, I think there's going to be huge political pressure on the minister and on Ofcom.”
If Twitter continues to be a big breeding ground for hatred... you shouldn't be able to access it from this country
Political pressure has already been growing. PoliticsHome revealed that Reid, who also chairs the Antisemitism APPG, led a group of more than 30 cross-party MPs in signing a letter to the regulator’s chief executive calling for an urgent investigation into whether Elon Musk’s X platform, formerly known as Twitter, is failing to comply with its legal duties by hosting antisemitic posts.
Ofcom responded that it is launching a new compliance programme to examine whether the largest social media companies have adequate systems and policies to assess and take down illegal hate and terror content.
Science, Technology and Innovation Secretary Liz Kendall has written to the regulator multiple times in recent months to outline her concerns about the pace of implementation of the Online Safety Act, saying she was “deeply concerned” about delays.
“What's the point in looking at legal but harmful [content] if Ofcom aren't even getting the basic stuff right around illegal content?” Reid said.
“Ofcom needs to be bolder. It does not have the full confidence of those working to tackle online harm, and that should speak for itself. The approach to regulation will always be tricky, but at present, the balance is skewed against the victims of online harms and towards major tech barons and the companies they run.”
Asked whether she thought online safety was becoming more of an important issue for voters, Reid said it was “a big issue at the school gates” with parents, and one which “cuts across all classes, all political parties”.
Reid was, however, more reluctant to talk about the impact of online harms of politicians themselves: “One of the reasons why I don't talk about it publicly is because there is almost an acceptance within politics that it's just part of the job and part of the territory.
“It shouldn't be like that, but there is no sympathy for abuse that MPs get. Mistrust in politicians is particularly high at the moment, and it's a vicious cycle, isn't it? Because part of that is because of social media.”
However, Reid is adamant that the government should reconsider its own use of X. Multiple Labour MPs have called for ministers to take control of decisions over the government’s continued use of the platform, as concerns grow about its safety, political influence and role in amplifying extremist content.
“This is something the government needs to consider carefully: the requirement to meet people where they are, judged against taking a principled stance where hate is being amplified,” Reid said.
“We're now getting to the point that we need to decide as a collective whether government, Parliament, MPs, should be on there, and I include myself in that.
“If Twitter continues to be a big breeding ground for hatred and they don't take their responsibilities to UK citizens seriously, then not only do I think government shouldn't be on it, but that you shouldn't be able to access it from this country. Because if they're not complying with our laws, then they shouldn't be allowed to operate. It's that simple.”
