2026-05-20 14:04:51

Leading online safety campaigners have called on the UK government to block under-16s from accessing social media platforms deemed unsafe rather than imposing a blanket Australia-style ban.

The NSPCC, Molly Rose Foundation and Smartphone Free Childhood have written to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer urging ministers to make access to social platforms conditional on stricter safety standards.

The groups argue that apps offering “risky” features such as infinite scrolling, disappearing messages and push notifications should not be freely available to teenagers.

The organisations wrote: “We are asking you to act now to require tech platforms to meet strict safety standards to continue to offer their services to under-16s.

“We believe a binary debate between banning children from social media or not can oversimplify what is a complex issue.

“Instead, platforms’ continued ability to offer accounts and services to children should be made conditional on their ability to demonstrate that they are safe.”

The intervention comes ahead of the close of a UK government consultation examining new online safety measures, including a possible social media ban for under-16s and restrictions on livestreaming and location-sharing features.

Unlike Australia, where age restrictions apply to platforms enabling social interaction and content posting, UK campaigners are advocating a safety-based model.

Under their proposal, platforms and new features would face safety checks before being made available to younger users.

The UK’s social media regulation framework is currently governed through the Online Safety Act and overseen by Ofcom.

Joe Ryrie, director of Smartphone Free Childhood, said: “What’s so significant about this moment is that organisations across civil society are aligning around a simple principle: access to our children should be treated as a privilege that must be earned, not an automatic right.”

Andy Burrows, whose charity was founded by the family of school pupil Molly Russell after she took her own life at the age of 14 in 2017, said safer design should be mandatory.

He argued it should be a “precondition for tech firms to do business in the UK”.

A government spokesperson said ministers shared the campaigners’ concerns and that the issue was not “whether we will act, but how”.

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