Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing mounting pressure from a coalition of charities and child safety experts to enforce strict safety standards on technology companies before they can offer their services to children under 16 in the United Kingdom. The group, which includes organisations with differing views on a potential social media ban for teenagers, has united to present a unified front ahead of the conclusion of a landmark government consultation on social media restrictions next week.
Unified Call for Conditional Access
In a letter delivered to Downing Street, the coalition argues that the debate around banning children from social media should not be reduced to a simplistic all-or-nothing choice. Instead, they advocate for a conditional approach: platforms must be required to eliminate features that are addictive by design or pose risks to children's safety and wellbeing. These features include infinite scrolling, video autoplay, disappearing messages, location sharing, and the ability for strangers to contact minors.
The letter states: “Platforms’ continued ability to offer accounts and services to children should be made conditional on their ability to demonstrate that they are safe.” The signatories include the NSPCC, Smartphone Free Childhood, the Molly Rose Foundation, FlippGen, and People vs. Big Tech. This marks the first time that organisations like Smartphone Free Childhood, which has called for raising the social media age to 16, and the Molly Rose Foundation, which has warned against an outright ban similar to Australia's, have jointly written to the Prime Minister.
Significance of the Coalition
The campaigners believe that the diversity of groups coming together is highly significant and provides a clear, practical path forward for the government. The UK government is currently consulting on a range of online safety measures, including app curfews, limits on addictive design, and an outright social media ban for teens. The consultation is set to conclude next week.
Joe Ryrie, co-founder and director of Smartphone Free Childhood, said: “What’s so significant about this moment is that organisations across civil society are aligning around a simple principle: access to our children should be treated as a privilege that must be earned, not an automatic right. The Prime Minister now has a historic opportunity not just to implement world-leading regulation, but to help reclaim childhood for a generation. He must seize it.”
Andy Burrows, chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation, added: “Parents are rightly demanding action to protect children online and it’s crucial the Government acts quickly and decisively off the back of the consultation to make safety a precondition for tech firms to do business in the UK.”
Chris Sherwood, chief executive at the NSPCC, said: “Services must be held accountable for putting children's safety first and delivering age-appropriate experiences. The status quo cannot continue - we need to see transformational change, targeting the drivers of harm to children across the online world.”
Ava Lee, executive director of People vs Big Tech, commented: “The Prime Minister now has a historic opportunity to put the UK at the forefront of child safety by forcing tech companies to prove their platforms are safe before they are given access to children. If a product risks harming children, it should not be on the market — and social media should be no exception.”
Government Response
A government spokesman said: “We share the coalition's determination to keep children safe online and value the role they play in pushing for change. We want to give children the childhood they deserve and to prepare them for the future. We know families want us to move fast, and we've secured new powers to act quickly once the consultation concludes. This isn’t a question of whether we will act, but how - we will set out next steps by the summer.”
