By Joe Langabeer
Keir Starmer and his government have recently announced a social media ban for under-16s, restricting access to platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. Whilst some parents and political pundits might praise the ban, it will not fundamentally stop young people from using social media when there are ways around it. Worse, it lets tech companies off the hook. Social media is a problem that affects us all, not only young people who are being unfairly punished by this ban.
The ban is attempting to copy Australia’s recent social media ban, introduced in 2025. Several other countries, including China, Indonesia and Brazil, also have restrictions, though these are generally far less draconian than the legislation being brought forward by the UK government.
The ban will affect most major social media platforms, but it will also impact gaming. Popular titles such as Roblox and Minecraft will be affected, with young people supposedly prevented from communicating with strangers. The UK is taking a step further than Australia by also proposing a ban on livestreaming.
This is particularly interesting and carries a whiff of further authoritarianism, considering that a livestream ban would also affect figures on the left, including streamer Hasan Piker, who was recently barred from entering the UK by the Home Office.
The current proposals remain vague, with little information on how these policies will be enforced. The only details we do know, as reported by The Financial Times, are that Ofcom will be given powers to fine social media companies up to 10 per cent of their worldwide revenue if they fail to comply, with companies facing a permanent block if they continue to violate the new rules.
Mixed evidence
One of the key figures advocating for this ban is social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who wrote the book The Anxious Generation, published in 2024. He argues that social media is “rewiring” young people’s minds and harming their mental health through their use of smartphones.
His book has been presented as a seminal contribution to the campaign against social media, and he is frequently invited onto television and radio programmes to criticise social media and smartphones. However, the evidence underpinning his arguments is limited.
The book is largely anecdotal, and a report published after its release by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine examined many of the assumptions linking social media and mental health, one of the key justifications cited by Starmer’s government for this ban.
The report concluded that there is little evidence to suggest that social media, in and of itself, is harmful to mental health. Rather, it is how social media is used, and the content and algorithms people are exposed to, that can affect mental well-being.
Problems of social media and AI
What does appear to be true is that there is growing evidence that social media, alongside smartphone use, may be contributing to cognitive decline. A 2019 study involving researchers from institutions including King’s College London, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford found that internet use, alongside social media, may be linked to changes in grey matter and shorter attention spans. It should be noted that this is not only affecting young people, but all who use these technologies.
The same argument can be made about generative artificial intelligence. A report from MIT, published in June 2025, found that cognitive activity declined more rapidly when using generative AI systems than when using external tools such as search engines like Google.
Starmer’s government has not reacted in the same way to generative AI. On the contrary, it has actively promoted the technology, suggesting it is Britain’s future. The government has recently announced a new AI taskforce that will be used in the military and across other public services, according to information published on its website.
It is clear where Starmer’s priorities lie. He is willing to support the billionaires of Silicon Valley by pushing generative AI into every facet of the workplace, while allowing them to cut jobs and punishing young people for the failures of those same billionaires who profit from algorithms promoting harmful content.
Criticism of the ban
From the continued rise in tuition fees, to further attacks on young people claiming welfare, and the recent banning of streamers who support causes that many young people care about, this government appears to be punishing young people with these new laws, whilst letting those at the top escape scrutiny.
The chief executive of Amnesty International UK, Kerry Moscogiuri, released a statement criticising the ban. She argued that while the government is right to recognise that social media poses serious problems, it has let big business off the hook by failing to tackle the companies that profit from and exploit people’s misery on these platforms.
Even the Molly Rose Foundation, which was established by Molly Russell’s father after the 14-year-old took her own life after being exposed to harmful online content, has criticised the ban. The foundation argues that the proposals fail to address the products and systems these companies have created, instead giving parents a “false sense of safety”.
Another attack on young people
Young people are aware of the problems caused by social media. An Amnesty International report from 2023 found that 74.3% of young people check social media more than they would like to, with many respondents stating that they are exposed to negative content they do not wish to see.
Whilst young people have difficulties detecting misinformation on social media platforms, as reported by Ofcom, they are at least aware of the problem compared to their older counterparts, who are more likely to believe what they see online and share misinformation even when it is untrue. A 2021 study from Harvard University found that people aged 65 and over were significantly more likely to share misinformation relating to the 2016 US presidential election, whereas rates among younger people were comparatively low.
A contemporary example of this trend was reported by The Financial Times during the Makerfield by-election. Reform candidate Robert Kenyon has been promoting campaign advertisements on social media aimed at older voters, a demographic the party sees as more likely to support it.
In turn, older users have been joining local Facebook groups where misinformation about the election has spread. It is not only young people who are susceptible to radicalisation or misinformation online. Older people can be particularly vulnerable because they did not grow up with the technology in the same way younger generations have.
But what do young people see on social media? They use it to keep up with information about the atrocities committed in Gaza by the Israeli government, as reported by The Guardian in 2023. They use it to learn about issues such as the increasing role of Palantir in the NHS and wider debates about privatisation.
They are also exposed to a growing number of voices advocating socialist ideas and policies. For many young people, let down by successive governments seeking to protect the interests of the capitalist class, these ideas offer an alternative vision of society and a potential solution to the problems they face.
That is the real reason why this ban exists. Starmer’s government has been complicit in supporting the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza, while allowing private companies to ravage and undermine many of the public services that remain.
He is attempting to silence voices on the left, many of whom have built large audiences on social media and provide a platform for issues that matter to young people. Under these proposals, young people will be increasingly restricted from engaging in those conversations.
Condemn the ban!
We should condemn this ban and instead argue for a public algorithm that does not promote harmful content or misinformation. There should be safeguards for young people, but it should be tech companies that provide those safeguards rather than placing the burden on parents and carers. More controls should be introduced to allow young people to set time limits and give them greater autonomy in stepping away from their phones if they feel they are becoming addicted to them.
Whilst political parties and public figures should be allowed to campaign on social media, those who deliberately promote misinformation should face removal, and parties should not be able to pay for advertisements that spread inaccurate content.
There is great potential in social media. The technology is remarkable, and it connects people in ways that would have been inconceivable only a couple of generations ago. But its ownership, management and operation must be transparent and democratically accountable. That can only be achieved if social media is run as a publicly owned service based on democratic principles, rather than as a profit-driven machine governed by secretive systems and algorithms.
[Feature picture of social media is from Wikimedia Commons, here]
