UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said his government will introduce new measures to limit children’s exposure to harmful content and addictive features on social media platforms, including setting a minimum age for access and restricting certain app functions.
In a public message on February 16, 2026, Starmer said the government will seek new powers from Parliament to strengthen online safety laws and bring AI chatbot providers clearly within their scope. He also said the government is considering limiting children’s use of virtual private networks (VPNs) to stop them from bypassing age restrictions.
The proposals follow earlier signals from the government in January that it was examining an Australia-style social media ban for children under 16. At the time, Starmer had said, “No option is off the table, including looking at what age children should be able to access social media and whether we need restrictions on things such as addictive features like infinite scrolling or streaks in apps.”
Proposed measures
According to Starmer, the government plans to:
- Tighten existing online safety laws to ensure AI chatbot providers are covered.
- Seek new powers from Parliament to act on findings from a social media consultation.
- Consider setting a minimum age limit for social media access.
- Restrict features such as endless scrolling and autoplay, which he said can negatively affect children’s wellbeing.
- Limit VPN access for children to prevent them from bypassing age limits or restricted features.
- Build on recent steps to ban “nudification apps” and criminalise the creation of intimate images without consent.
He said, “We will be going to Parliament for new government powers, enabling us to act on the findings of the social media consultation where the evidence suggests we need to.”
On the possibility of imposing an age threshold, he said the government would take powers “that would allow us to implement a minimum age for social media in a matter of months to prevent kids from accessing harmful social media.”
Formal consultation underway on social media measures
UK Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told the House of Commons on January 20: “We (the UK government) will bring forward a swift three-month consultation on further measures to keep children safe online.”
The consultation will seek views from parents, young people and other stakeholders. It will examine stronger age-verification systems and whether platforms should remove or limit features that “drive compulsive use of social media”.
Government ministers are also expected to visit Australia to study its approach. Australia became the first country to implement a nationwide social media ban for users under 16 in December 2025.
The push follows a letter from 60 Labour lawmakers urging a legal minimum age of 16 for social media access. “Successive governments have done far too little to protect young people…
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