01-20-2026 
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The United Kingdom is considering new restrictions that would ban under-16-year-olds from social media, according to a recent statement from Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said “all options are on the table,” while citing Australia’s social media ban.
Starmer’s comments came in response to questions about a grassroots email campaign launched by U.K. advocacy organization Smartphone Free Childhood calling for “reasonable, age-appropriate boundaries” for social media platforms.
“Social media platforms are designed to maximise attention, not to support healthy childhood development,” states the campaign page. “The evidence of harm is now clear: rising anxiety, sleep disruption, exposure to inappropriate content, and intense social pressure on children at ever-younger ages.”
Since it launched on January 13, the campaign has already seen more than 100,000 people contact their local MP to call for an Australia-style social media ban for under-16s.
When asked about it on January 15, Starmer reportedly told journalists that “we need to better protect children from social media,” adding that “all options are on the table in relation to what further protections we can put in place – whether that’s under-16s on social media or an issue I am very concerned about, under-fives and screen time.”
Starmer also hinted that he was “open” to an approach similar to Australia’s, saying that the government was “looking at what is happening in Australia.”
Specifically, beginning December 10, 2025, Australia controversially banned anyone under 16 from keeping or making accounts on social media apps such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, X, and Facebook (NASDAQ: META).
The Australian rules don’t specifically punish young people or their families for using the apps; rather, they put the responsibility on social media companies to stop under-16s from having accounts, with potential fines of up to AUSD $50 million ($33.2 million) for those companies that fail to enforce the rules.
The Australian government said its goal was to reduce the negative impact of social media’s design features that “encourage [young people] to spend more time on screens, while also serving up content that can harm their health and wellbeing.”In the U.K., the discussion centers around the Online Safety Act, which was passed in 2023 and requires platforms to take action—such as carrying out age checks—to stop children seeing illegal and harmful content relating to suicide, self-harm, eating disorders, and pornography. The Act came into force in July 2025, and internet services face large fines of over £18 million ($24 million) or 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater, if they fail to comply.
Much like the Australian approach, the Act places the onus on companies—not parents or children—to enforce the rules, or face fines. While the U.K.’s approach is broader in scope, applying to all websites viewable in the U.K., unlike the Australian approach, it doesn’t go as far as banning children from social media platforms entirely.
The calls for this latter prohibition to be added to the Online Safety Act have grown louder in recent months, partly in light of the Australian ban coming into force, but particularly due to recent scandals in the U.K. that have further damaged public perception of the harm social media can cause.
Namely, earlier in the month, reports emerged that Grok—the AI chatbot of Elon Musk’s X—was being used to create and disseminate explicit images of children and women with their clothes digitally removed.
In response to the scandal, Starmer promised to “take action” on “disgraceful and disgusting” reports around child abuse imagery on Grok AI, telling Greatest Hits Radio on January 8 that “this is wrong, it’s unlawful, we are not going to tolerate it.” The Prime Minister added that “I have asked for all options to be on the table.”
The calls for tighter controls also have bipartisan support. On Thursday, prominent Conservative Party Member of Parliament David Davis said in a post on X that banning social media for children was “the right move,” adding that “the real issue isn’t the principle; it is how you do it without undermining the personal liberty of the rest of the population. You can protect children while also respecting our freedoms.”
Considering such broad cross-party support for tighter restrictions, as well as the decidedly lackluster response taken by Elon Musk’s X to the recent Grok scandal—simply limiting the image creation function to paying users—the prospect of some form of U.K. social media ban for children is appearing increasingly likely.
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