Older teenagers in Britain will have to switch the settings on social media apps to be able to use them after midnight under new safeguarding rules planned by the government.
A month after it announced plans to introduce a sweeping ban on social media for young people under 16, the government said it also planned a default overnight curfew for young people aged 16 and 17.
Affected users would be blocked from using the apps between midnight and 6am unless they change the default setting. Features designed to keep users scrolling would also be switched off by default.
The curbs underline global concerns among parents and policymakers about safeguarding young people from the harmful effects of social media on their mental and physical health.
“These measures will be crucial in helping young people get the sleep they need, focus on school and college, and spend more quality time with family and friends,” technology minister Liz Kendall said.
Online safety minister Kanishka Narayan said tech companies would be legally required to implement the curfew.
“We’re forcing the tech companies to do it,” he told LBC Radio yesterday.
He said the companies had a liability to do more robust age checks and that those that fail to do so would face ‘very severe regulatory sanction’.
Instagram owner Meta, TikTok parent ByteDance and Google, which owns YouTube, did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment on the curbs.
Meanwhile, the European Union, which fined Elon Musk’s social media network X $137.2 million last year, said yesterday it had accepted an action plan by X to comply with transparency rules under the EU’s Digital Services Act.
“The European Commission has accepted X’s action plan to comply with transparency obligations and researchers’ access to data under the Digital Services Act,” it said in a statement.
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