Social Media Ban for Under-16s

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right to highlight the importance of the definitions and ensuring that we target the platforms that we intend to. The definition that we have adopted from that in Australia is

“whose purpose is to enable social interaction and which allow users to post material, alongside algorithms”.

We will look carefully at the criteria and how they apply to particular platforms and expected exemptions to ensure that when the regulation is applied in the real world. it achieves its purpose. We will be developing that during this year, so it may not be quite immediately that we update the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

My Lords, I warmly welcome yesterday’s announcement of a social media ban. It will make a material difference to the future of many children and young people in our country and is what parents and carers across the country have been crying out for. I echo many of the sentiments expressed. I commend the courage and tenacity of the bereaved parents who every day have campaigned on this issue to ensure that no one else must suffer as they have to every single day. I echo the many points that have been made about enforcement.

On functionalities, many have talked about safety by design. The Prime Minister said that we were going to see stranger pairing stopped. It is right that this happens, but it must be associated with ensuring that no child or young person can be geotagged or located through location services. Stranger pairing is very dangerous—knowing where young people are should be restricted to the parents, carers and, potentially, the siblings of those young people.

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for her passionate advocacy of the importance of improving online safety for our young people and for the engagement that she has had over the years with the families and others. She is right to highlight that we are taking action on not just social media companies but the functionalities. I undertook to write to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, on geotagging and geolocation. I will make sure that I write to my noble friend at the same time.