Following the United Kingdom’s recent
plans to ban all teens under 16 years of age from accessing leading social media platforms, government officials are considering a proposed midnight curfew for 16- and 17-year-old teens
attempting to access social media.
On Tuesday, U.K. government officials announced that per the potential curfew,
older teens would be automatically blocked from using specific social apps between midnight and 6 a.m. but can still change the default settings.
Additional features that allow for infinite scrolling would also be switched off by default, according to
government officials.
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“We're forcing the tech companies to do it,” said Online Safety Minister
Kanishka Narayan in a radio interview Wednesday, implying that social media platform owners would be legally required to accommodate the government’s orders.
“Either they think 16- and 17-year-olds should be on social media or they don't, but curfews they can
simply switch off won't achieve anything,” said Laura Trott, the Conservative Party’s education policy chief.
In line with Trott’s opinion, a recent government-run report found that in Australia -- the first country to implement a nationwide ban on social media for teens – around 70% of underage users have continued to
access social media apps due to the lack of an effective age-checking solution in place.
The social media
curfew proposal comes a month after Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced plans to ban all younger teens from accessing Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X, as well as select game platforms and livestreaming apps.
According to the government, 90% of parents who responded to a national survey agreed with the restriction for an
age minimum of 16.
The proposed ban – which the government hopes to have in place by early 2027 – follows similar actions proposed and passed in
Australia, Greece, Indonesia, Austria, Denmark, Slovenia, Germany, Spain,
France, various states in the U.S., and most recently, Turkey.