As part of the government’s continuing efforts to meet its pledge to stop violence against women and girls as well as to protect young people from digital harms via the Online Safety Act (OSA), the signs are pointing to a complete ban of social media for children.
Talks of a ban have been happening for a while, inspired by an act of Australian parliament that prohibits those under 16 from using certain social media platforms, with similar laws passing in Malaysia and Spain.
The UK has already been experimenting with age restrictions for online content that is explicitly for adults, notably pornography, enforced by the OSA and several consultations and research projects examining social media restrictions for children are currently underway….
