Never make laws regarding the unmeasurable and the uncontainable. The silliness of these injunctive measures can only come back and bite. Prohibit brothels, and decent whoring goes into, quite literally, dens of unmonitored squalor, lacking safety and scrutiny. Ban the wicked booze in the name of higher values of temperance and liver preservation, and create Al Capone and any number of pugnacious, law-breaking figures. (To that, add the creation of bathtub gin, blinding hooch and any number of pleasure potions taken with willing daring.) Ban access of those under 16-years-old to social media platforms and encourage a subversive generation of youth who will not read more, study more or exercise a single muscle. They might, just for the fun of it, find themselves navigating some rather unsavoury sources on the Dark Web and seek the surfing pleasures offered by Virtual Privacy Networks. And what of privacy protections, the very inconveniences spurned by the social media giants?
The United Kingdom, drawing inspiration from Australia, is yet another country making a moral claim to the mental and spiritual wellbeing of children by shackling them from using social media platforms till they ripen to 16. (These measures will come into force in early 2027.) The UK, through its Online Safety Act, had already introduced rules in mid-2025 requiring all online sites accessible in the country to enforce age checks to prevent children from viewing harmful content. What constitutes harmful content is vast and miscellaneous, covering anything from eating disorders to material that encourages, promotes or provides instructions for stunts and challenges that would highly likely result in serious injury.
The government of Sir Keir Starmer was so thrilled by the measure they were willing to claim it even went further than their antipodean cousins. In a June 15 press release, Starmer and Liz Kendall, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, stated that “the same model for a social media ban as Australia. This would capture user-to-user platforms, whose purpose is to enable social interaction and which allow users to post material, alongside algorithms.” The ban would apply to such platforms as Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X.
The “blocks” on “livestreaming and stranger communication with children for under-16s” also promised to be “world-leading”. Lessons from Australia’s experience would be taken into account “by introducing more highly effective age assurance (HEAA) measures to support compliance, making it harder for children to bypass safeguards.” The Office of Communications (Ofcom) would also be tasked with conducting “a rapid study” on the effectiveness of age assurance technologies and reviewing its enforcement capabilities.
To give their case the political freight necessary, Starmer and Kendall could draw upon 116,000 responses submitted by parents, children and the cognoscenti from across the country. “The responses showed overwhelming public backing for tougher action. 9 and 10 parents said they would support a social media ban for children under 16.”
The claims that digital platforms have a ruthless penchant to exploiting the attention of children, luring them in with scrolling features (the same applies to mentally impoverished adults, too), and causing dysfunction, are hard to impeach. Blanket restrictions of this sort, however, do not address the crucial issue: that of design. Kerry Moscogiuri, Chief Executive of Amnesty International UK, makes the valid point that the diagnosis, while right, has been afforded the wrong prescription: “[T]he problem is not that children exist on social media; it’s that social media companies have built platforms that are unsafe by design. Banning under-16s risks treating children as the problem rather than addressing the companies and systems that create the risks in the first place.”
Anathemised and abominated, the digital fora offered by social media also serve as spaces of participation and engagement for the young, so often treated by government authorities as vessels of dangerous immaturity. As Moscogiuri goes on to reason, “Social media can expose children to harm, but it is also where many young people learn, connect with friends, organize around social issues they care about and make their voices heard.”
One lesson from the Australian experience not mentioned in the fanfare of the UK ban is the mounting evidence on how effective these measures are. In April, the ABC took note of the views of frustrated parents claiming that the lion’s share of enforcement still fell to them. (That’s parenting for you.) One parent, Felicity Williams, took issue with the ease her 14-year-old managed to download the messaging app Snapchat. Attempts to block the child were circumvented through her daughter’s evident and admirable canniness with technology: she merely re-downloaded the app through iCloud. Williams could only berate Snapchat for being remiss about its obligations.
This instance of technological subversion is far from anecdotal. The Australian eSafety Commissioner’s March 2026 compliance update, drawing upon the findings of a survey of 898 parents conducted between January 19 and February 2, found a fall in the usage of social media accounts by children (49.7% to 31.3%) with one striking revelation: approximately 7 out of 10 parents since the ban came into effect “reported that their child still had an account on Facebook (63.6%), Instagram (69.1%), Snapchat (69.4%), and TikTok (69.3%).” Children are also reporting with some pride that age verification protocols are not being pursued consistently across the platforms.
Legally, the Australian scheme is also the subject of two challenges. The first involves the application for judicial review of the age verification measures by social media platform Reddit, with the argument that the law mandates “intrusive and potentially insecure verification processes” on all who use it while isolating teenagers from vital civic engagement. The second involves the Digital Freedom Project and two teenagers, Noah Jones and Macy Neyland, with the argument that the ban infringes the implied constitutional right to freedom of political communication. The filing by the DFP argues that exercising the freedom of political communication by the young citizens in question “is necessary for their education in political and governmental matters and in preparation for their exercise of voting rights in choosing political representatives upon them becoming entitled to vote.” Neyland further argues that the legislation “unjustly treats all young users as risks rather than responsible participants and that less intrusive measures, such as parental oversight, education, and privacy-protective tools, could achieve safety without undermining privacy or political communication rights.”
There is much to question in this move by Starmer, whose name risks being added to the list of endangered species known as the “British Prime Minister”. Facing what looks like an imminent leadership challenge, this less than masterful PM is a model, less of prudent restraint than constipated inertia, moving with enormous reluctance on most policy issues. To this can be added a conspicuous absence of sound judgment. His approval of Lord Peter Mandelson to take the reins of the ambassadorship in Washington, despite a record of sackings and very publicised links with the late financial wizard, confidence trickster and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, showed a staggering lack of judgment.
As his former safeguarding minister Jess Phillips has noted, getting Starmer to do anything on most social issues has been a feat of biblical onerousness. She had, for instance, campaigned at length for regulations that would prohibit the ability of children to take nude images of themselves. In her May resignation letter, Phillips wrote of how it had taken her “a year to get you to agree to even threaten to legislate in this space. Not legislate, just threaten. This is the definition of incremental change.” And now, with the crisis engulfing his leadership, the political usefulness of children – and their reverenced pristine innocence – has become all too apparent.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
