(Adnkronos) – The parents of some very young children who died during extreme online challenges that ended dramatically will meet British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at Downing Street today, to urge him to ban social media use for children under 16. “I, and other families who have lost children because of social media, will tell the Prime Minister directly that it is a product and, like any other defective product that causes the death of children, it should be restricted and modified until the responsible companies have proven its safety,” said Ellen Roome, who attributes the death of her 14-year-old son Jools Sweeney to one of these online challenges. A warning also came from doctors, for whom social media is as dangerous for young people as smoking: the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges warned that technology can have a negative impact in different ways, and defined social media as “the preferred drug of young people today”.
Government consultations on online safety are expected to conclude at midnight today. Starmer government ministers have committed to introducing some form of age or functionality restrictions on social media and have promised to act within “months, not years” once the consultation closes, after which an announcement from Starmer could come as early as today. Among the options on the table for participants is an Australian-style ban for children under 16: it is no coincidence that the Under-Secretary for Online Safety, Kanishka Narayan, is in Australia, where he met yesterday with the Minister for Communications, Anika Wells, to discuss how to protect young people online. Narayan also met with the Australian eSafety Commissioner and spoke with some teenagers about their experiences.
Wes Streeting, the former health minister of the London government, also joined the debate this morning. He resigned from the executive to challenge Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour Party.
For Streeting, too, social media is like the tobacco industry, and among those who design it, there are those who know that the product is addictive and harmful. “And then we see the consequences emerge with a growing body of evidence on the impact of this technology on childhood, whether it’s sleep, concentration, learning, health, well-being, including mental health. The harms are evident.” For Streeting, a ban for under 16s must be the beginning, not the end. “We have given the pen to tech magnates to write our future. It’s time to take it back.”
