- The UK government’s online security consultation has just finished
- This and comments from officials suggest that we will soon see new rules for under 16s
- A ban may not come, but some features may be limited
The UK government is expected to announce some sort of crackdown on social media for young people in the next few weeks – after Prime Minister Kier Starmer said on Tuesday he would act “very, very quickly” following a consultation with the public and with families; however, it is being reported that it may not be a complete ban for under 16s.
According to a report by The Times (behind a paywall), various experts and social media companies themselves expect a ban on addictive features such as infinite scroll or video autoplay.
The logic here seems to be that in places where there are outright bans on social media (such as Australia), many under-16s have found ways around restrictions – or have been pushed into less regulated online spaces that either ignore or are not included in the ban. So instead of stopping access, you would make the sites less addictive and safer by banning specific features.
Below I have outlined the 8 measures and bans we can see implemented by the UK Government. Other options are possible, although there are several that have been put forward by online safety advocates, social media companies themselves and those involved in UK politics – so I expect we’ll see some combination of these introduced as the UK’s crackdown on social media begins.
These two features are often used by social media companies and other platforms to encourage more engagement with content, so I’ve grouped them together.
Infinite scroll allows you to scroll infinitely – that is, no matter how many TikTok videos you swipe through or how far down the Instagram page you go, there is always more to see and consume. Autoplay is also self-explanatory; videos in your feed will automatically start playing as you scroll past – either with sound or silently with subtitles. This feature hopes to catch you on content that you may have moved past, as once it starts you’ll be a little bit invested in what you’re watching.
Infinite scroll was a key complaint in a California ruling that declared some social media platforms addictive, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s one of the first to go under any UK government rulings.
Alerts and push notifications
Another couple of tools that encourage social media usage, alerts and push notifications are the crunches and pop-ups you see telling you that you just got a DM, that your post got a comment, or that a content creator you’ve favorited just posted something.
They aim to take you away from whatever else you are doing and pull you back to the social media platform.
This can be handled at the app level, or it can also be handled at the device level — forcing iPhones and Android devices to block app notifications for accounts associated with minors. We will have to see what method, if any, the UK government chooses.
These interactive engagement tools are another that could be taken away from accounts belonging to users under 16, possibly removing those options from posts made by young people and/or removing their ability to like and comment.
While likes and comments are a mainstay of social media platforms, they can have consequences. Bad actors can use these features to harass the poster or to build a connection with the poster that could later be exploited.
Banning this aspect would allow younger users to still engage with social media by posting, but in a more bubbly and hopefully safer environment.
Personalized content recommendations
Aka the algorithm: the platform’s software that analyzes your watch time, likes, comments, scrolling habits, everything it can to figure out what you want to see and give it to you.
Banning this feature would make social media platforms much less appealing as your feed would not be tailored to your interests. However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing if the goal is to reduce time spent online, and it can help prevent the wave of young users from spiraling into shadier online sects, as the algorithm simply feeds you content it thinks you’ll engage with, not necessarily content you should see.
Device-level age verification
So far, the measures we might see aren’t what most platforms are pushing; instead, they have argued that age restrictions should be brought to the device level, which would see Apple and Google on the hook for checking the age of phone users and then tailoring their app access accordingly.
While it passes the buck to some extent, the benefits it brings are that it should help limit cases where there is a disparity between what limits are imposed on social media platforms, and for users, their private data is less likely to be leaked as they are only sharing it with one or two companies instead of every platform where they create an account.
A VPN ban
This idea has been floated a few times, including by the UK House of Lords back in December 2025.
It’s certainly still a possibility that we’ll see an under-16 ban, although a broader ban seems much less likely. One of our VPN experts, Chiara Castro, has gone over all the arguments against a VPN in another in-depth story, so check them out, but one of the reasons to limit VPN access is that they allow users to avoid geo-locked restrictions as they can spoof their location. Until restrictions are applied more globally, governments may feel that VPNs are a loophole they need to close.
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