Social Media: Ban for Under-16s

Darren Paffey Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2026 Westminster Hall

[Sam Carling (North West Cambridgeshire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Roger. The petition calls for the Government to rethink their ban on social media for under-16s. I want to set out why I agree with the aims of the petition and substantially with the 457 of my constituents who signed it.

I recognise that the Government’s policy was brought in with the best of intentions, but I have serious concerns that it will not be workable and that it will take away a lot of value. I am glad that Parliament has spent a lot of time recently debating the harms caused by poorly regulated social media. Urgent action is needed but, in looking at the current state of the online world, we have lost sight of what social media could and should be.

I will, and do, strongly criticise how tech companies have increasingly sought to make social media addictive, and have turned a blind eye to horrific exploitation and abuse online, as well as to deeply harmful content along the lines of what my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) just mentioned. We must force them to act in those areas, but their failure to do so to date must not lead us to conclude that social media itself is an unfixable problem, when it can bring positives to people’s lives.

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

When the Education Committee looked at online harms, we had every major social media corporation before us. They did not recognise our characterisation of their features as inherently addictive. Does my hon. Friend agree that, with that kind of denial going on, we have very few options available other than to ensure that corporations’ access to our children is restricted? That is how we should look at it, rather than as restricting children’s access to social media.

[Sam Carling]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that social media companies having denied a lot of the problems and treated this as a non-serious issue is deeply wrong and alarming. I hope he will agree with some of my proposals for how we may look at that.

The petition emphasises the community and connection that social media currently offers young people. I have personal experience of that. I have spoken about this in debates before, but when I was about 13, I realised that my sexuality was not like that of those around me; I was not straight. But living in a rural area and growing up in quite a homophobic, close-knit religious community, I had few people to talk to about that. Social media was such a valuable tool for me to be able to connect with other LGBT people in similar situations. Had I not had it, I would have been far more alienated and alone, and lacking peer support. I fear that a blanket ban on social media could risk making that a reality for many and I cannot support that—not after the lifeline that online conversation gave me when I was growing up.

That does not just go for LGBT people. Growing up in a rural area more generally can create barriers for children, whose friends may live some distance away. If used properly, online spaces can help to widen social circles and maintain friendships made in the real world. I do not want young people to lose that because of the way tech companies are acting. Without a doubt, we need to seriously strengthen safeguards. Clearly, significant work needs to be done to keep children safe online. However, a blanket ban would be clumsy and risks being completely ineffective.

I worry in particular that the proposed named-platform approach would result in a constant game of whack-a-mole between children and Ofcom as the former migrate to new platforms as the old ones are made unavailable. Young people are far more digitally literate than older generations have sometimes grasped and they move faster than I believe any regulator could. Although well meaning, a blanket ban could drive children to fringe platforms that are even less well regulated, where extreme content could be even more prevalent. That is an outcome that I am sure nobody wants.

Earlier this year, the NSPCC, the Centre of Expertise on Child Sexual Abuse, the Molly Rose Foundation and a long list of other child safety experts signed a letter to the Government warning that a blanket ban was a “blunt response”. They are united in calling instead for more accountability from the big tech companies. The NSPCC, for example, has been clear that the Government need to stop companies designing their platforms in a way that is addictive to children, and use the full force of the law to make sure that social media platforms are safe for children to use.

I support a functionality-based approach: limiting certain features without creating a situation in which children—who will find a way to use social media regardless —are led on to more extreme platforms. We are seeing some of the risk with this right now in Australia, which has had a social media ban in place. According to research from the Molly Rose Foundation, 61% of Australian 12 to 15-year-olds are still accessing platforms that they are meant to be banned from. That is clear evidence, in my mind, of why platform-based bans are not the answer and why we must change course. A functionality-based approach would benefit users of all ages, frankly, by limiting the addictive and AI-generated content that has increasingly plagued the major sites in recent years. I say that because addictive content affects adults, too, and not just children.

Targeting functionalities could also stop the race to the bottom when it comes to short-form content. The popularity of short-form videos exploded with TikTok a few years ago, and now pretty much every platform has a shorts feature. Even LinkedIn has experimented with one. It seems that many platforms have felt the need to introduce a shorts feature in order to remain competitive, even when it does not quite seem to fit—take YouTube, which was always designed for long-form content, or Instagram, which has increasingly promoted its Reels function over the more traditional posts feed that it was known for.

I think that a lot of short-form content has exacerbated a lot of underlying problems, particularly in relation to algorithmically driven harmful content, which we need to bear in mind. However, I can certainly envisage a scenario in which several platforms would probably not really have an issue with getting rid of their shorts features —which have led to so many of the problems that we are talking about—if others did so too. That is where regulation could step in. Any regulation of social media companies needs to take into account the decisions that they are making and why they are being made, so that we can force them to do things better.

On the subject of YouTube, I would like briefly to highlight the fact that it is explicitly included in the ban. I think that is particularly difficult. There are of course problems with it as a platform—I have criticised it too—but it has a lot of educational content, for example. I would argue that there is an equality angle here, because although that is valuable for anyone, removing it could be a real blow for students who are trying to improve their school grades but do not have the funds to pay for private tutors. It is a real possibility that this type of ban could create significant inequalities in access to resources.

Online Safety

Darren Paffey Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

My hon. Friend raises two linked and important points. First, we are the Government of the United Kingdom and are responsible to the people of this country. Although we have close friends and allies all over the world, we reserve the right to take our own view on technology. Particularly when it comes to keeping children safe, that is non-negotiable. Secondly, we have to be on the front foot in developing new forms of technology. I believe that tech, the online space and AI should be—and can be—a force for good in the world, but in order to help create that and be leaders in the field, we have to be on the front foot in developing forms of technology and having sovereign capability. I can reassure my hon. Friend on that point because I discussed it, this very morning, with the Business Secretary and the AI Minister.

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

I thank and commend the Secretary of State for the Government’s world-leading action. Does she agree that at some point in the future, we are going to look back and wonder how we let the tech companies get away with hijacking our children’s attention and safety for so long? She talks about closing loopholes, but will she say more about what is happening across Government and with the regulators—as well as internationally—to ensure that those who produce the devices and what goes on them all play their part in keeping our children safe?

[Lisa Nandy]

I think we have been living through a revolution in the way we interact with one another and with Government, compared with when I was growing up. I am going to sound incredibly old now, but I think I was 17 before I got my first email address, and Google was not a thing at that point—it was Ask Jeeves, if anyone remembers that. We have been living through this revolution for quite some time, and it is about time that Governments caught up. We have to ensure that we are on the front foot, helping to shape the society we want to have, not just allowing that to be relegated to the private sphere.

My hon. Friend talks about the global consensus, and I think there is a global consensus forming on this. We are seeing more and more that states are prepared to step up and be on the front foot and taking action. We are working closely with our friends and allies around the world, trying to move in step so that this can be as effective as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Darren Paffey Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Lisa Nandy]

I reassure the hon. Member that the Government work closely with the charity sector. Only a few months ago, the Prime Minister threw open the doors of Downing Street to launch a new covenant with civil society to work hand in hand with them on the shared challenges we face. We are aware of the impact of the changes on charities. That is why we have more than doubled the employment allowance from £5,000 to £10,500 to protect the smallest charities, and we published an impact assessment alongside the autumn Budget process that sets out the impact on charities. We will continue to work closely with charities to support them.

[Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)]

T3. The national youth strategy is a crucial step forward, and I welcome its progress. Will the Secretary of State outline how new youth programmes, such as the better youth spaces initiative, will help to rebuild facilities in Southampton Itchen, where years of Conservative cuts have impacted opportunities for our young people?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Stephanie Peacock)]

We fully acknowledge the challenges faced by the sector and the challenging needs of young people. The strategy will help us move forward from a one-size-fits-all approach from central Government, bringing power back to young people and their communities and rebuilding a thriving and sustainable youth sector.