Keir Starmer has promised to ban the “addictive algorithms” that keep children doomscrolling on social media, warning that the government would not be forgiven if it did not do more to protect young people online.
In an interview with The Observer, the prime minister said last week’s landmark US ruling that Meta and Google were liable for the harm caused to a young woman who became addicted to their platforms was “a turning point” and should mark “the beginning of a different approach”.
He said he was now “open-minded” about preventing under-16s from using social media. The prime minister had previously opposed a complete ban, but has been persuaded to change his mind by cabinet ministers, Labour MPs and No 10 advisers, as concerns grow about the impact of technology on young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
The government has launched a three-month consultation on a social media ban for under-16s, but Starmer said there was already “greater consensus” about some issues. “The addictive algorithms clearly, to my mind, shouldn’t be permitted,” he said. “This is the platforms trying to get children to stay on for longer, to get addicted. I can’t see that there’s a case for that, and therefore I can see we’re going to have to act.”
A jury in Los Angeles found that Meta, which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, and Google, owner of YouTube, intentionally built addictive social media platforms that damaged the 20-year-old woman’s mental health. The plaintiff was awarded $6m (£4.5m) in damages.
The ruling is expected to open the floodgates to further lawsuits. Both Meta and Google confirmed they were planning to appeal.
The LA decision came a day after a court in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375m for misleading users over the safety of its platforms for children.
The jury found the tech company liable for the way in which its platforms endangered children and exposed them to sexually explicit material and sexual predators.
Keir Starmer visits a London primary school. Photograph by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
In the UK, ministers have added a clause to the children’s wellbeing and schools bill that would allow them to change the law quickly, using secondary legislation, if they decide to introduce additional controls. The new powers include the ability to clamp down on “addictive functionalities” on social media sites.
Starmer said: “Unlike the Online Safety Act, where the last government took eight years from identifying the harm to actually getting an act in place, once we know what it is we’re going to do, we need to act quickly.”
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He added: “Things will not stay as they are. I don’t think the next generation would forgive us if we didn’t act now. So there is going to be change. There is going to be greater protection for children. I can be absolutely clear about that.”
One option under consideration in Whitehall is to raise the “digital age of consent” so that the social media companies cannot access the data of younger children in order to personalise content. The government could also force tech businesses to be more transparent about the algorithms they use to drive engagement, or give users greater choice about the content they see.
Starmer said the government was looking at creating a mechanism to allow legislation to be more rapidly updated. “We have to have a way of keeping up because the technology is moving really fast,” he said. “What we can’t have is a government that is stumbling to keep up.”
In December, Australia became the first country to introduce a ban on social media for under-16s. Last week, the House of Lords voted for the second time in favour of introducing a similar ban in this country.
John Nash, the Tory peer who tabled the Lords amendment on a social media ban, said the US trial must be a catalyst for change. “The tech entrepreneurs that run these social media companies are some of the most able, entrepreneurial, innovative people in the world, but in relation to the cavalier approach they have taken to harmful product features or content online for our children, they’ve gone way too far in prioritising their commercial instincts,” said Lord Nash.
Main photograph by Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images
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