Banning under-16s from social media lets tech firms off the hook
5 min read
Far from protecting children, a ban risks exposing them to even more toxic content.
Calls for a social media ban for under-16s have received a fresh impetus after Kemi Badenoch’s intervention this weekend, which saw the Conservatives come out in favour of this overly blunt approach.
Every parent worries desperately about online risks and they are entirely right to do so. More than eight years after my daughter Molly’s death, the risks of social media remain unacceptable and continue to cost young lives. Our recent research found that almost half of girls saw suicide, self-harm, depression or eating disorder content on social media every week before the Online Safety Act took effect.
The risks are very much live, the response from governments and regulators has been slow and performative, and calls for bans are entirely understandable.
However, parents and children deserve proper, evidence-based solutions to the risks posed by social media, rather than being offered ineffective and simplistic answers, however popular they might be. We need a coherent plan to reduce harm and improve wellbeing, not easy fixes that are being pushed by well-intentioned campaigners and adopted by politicians looking to further their own political prospects.
So, let me be clear. Bold and sweeping action is needed. Our current approach to online safety is just not working.
If the Online Safety Act had been delivered in full, and hadn’t been delayed and watered down following Kemi Badenoch’s infamous comments that the Act was "legislating for hurt feelings", children and parents might now be in a different place.
Parents would be seeing a meaningful and transformative shift in their children’s safety and wellbeing and we would all have confidence that this is a problem that can be tackled - and that can get better.
Change was also promised by the Labour government and Keir Starmer. The Prime Minister personally assured me a year ago that he would look to make further progress, but following trade talks and pressure from the Trump administration, those promises went still.
Ofcom’s implementation of the Online Safety Act has been nothing short of abysmal.
The regulator’s close relationship with big tech has seen them bake in the status quo, not demand the sweeping shift towards safety and wellbeing so urgently required.
The regulator has lacked the resolve needed to tackle the most flagrant breaches of the Act. As we’ve seen this week with X, Ofcom only moved in the right direction, albeit slowly, when pressured from the public, politicians and the media.
Further and swift action is needed. But this shouldn’t come in the form of blunt bans and abandoning the evidence of what works.
The Australian experiment is a populist move that was driven by politics ahead of what was expected to be a close election. The early indications are that its rollout has been rocky and that children can and are finding ways around it.
I’m hugely concerned that bans will cause more harm than good. As with so many simplistic promises they won’t result in the meaningful change desired, in this case progress for children’s safety online.
Harm and bad actors will likely migrate to platforms not covered by bans, such as gaming sites, where risks will flourish putting children in harm’s way and making it less likely they’ll talk to trusted adults when encountering a problem online.
We’d effectively be turning back the tide on the progress already made on safety with platforms using the ban as an excuse not to clean up their act, leaving children at a cliff edge of harm on unregulated platforms when they turn 16.
Further progress on product safety would stall and with emerging risks such as AI chatbots urgently requiring attention this would be unforgiveable.
What’s more children would be unable to enjoy the benefits of social media in a way that can keep them connected, which will impact vulnerable young people hardest, increasing loneliness, social isolation and potentially poor mental health.
Instead we must follow the evidence. The government commissioned a review into the evidence around social media and bans but has sat on it for the last six months.
It is now crucial they publish this review so we can all see its findings, alongside a comprehensive plan to fix regulation so it does what parents are rightly demanding.
The Prime Minister should heed parents’ concerns and strengthen regulation based around what works, using this domestic pressure to stand up to tech firms and rebut coordinated pressure from the White House.
The government must legislate for a bold and reimagined focus when it comes to social media, including in wellbeing by design.
It should set tough expectations for bringing products to market that require social media platforms to offer safe and high quality experiences as a precondition for operating in the UK.
While the calls for bans are deafening, they represent a symptom of the problem not the solution.
Instead the Prime Minister should deliver what his party promised and commit to strengthen the Online Safety Act relying on evidence of what’s best for children rather than well intentioned experiments.
Ian Russell is chair of the Molly Rose Foundation
