Will Starmer's social media ban for kids really happen?

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0:32This is a global production. We're banning social media for under-16s. But if you suddenly get the force of the American government coming at you and saying, you can't do this to our social media companies. There are people who feel that Keir Starmer, that the government, has let the companies off the hook because all that happens now is that children have to be the ones banned. The companies carry on spewing whatever gross stuff they want, quite frankly. There was a video, an AI manipulator video on Grok that was made of me being surrounded by a group of men, chloroformed, and I faint and my skirts are lifted up as if for some horrible sexual assault.

1:12It's not an easy thing to do, I'll be honest about that. We haven't rushed into it, we've looked carefully at the evidence. And we'll have to adapt our approach as technology changes. learn from other countries which are taking similar steps. And it's fair to say that this decision has been resisted and it will face resistance from some of the most powerful companies in the world. But we will take them on and we will win. That's the man who wants to be Prime Minister next week, looking like the other man who wants to be Prime Minister next week. But tempting as it is to focus on the Burnham-esque aesthetic of a prime minister in white t-shirt and Harrington jacket, we're going to focus on that other question.

2:05Will this social media policy ban work and will it come into effect? Welcome to the News Agents.

2:18The News Agents. It's John. It's Maitlis. And today we had the Prime Minister with this much trailed announcement about imposing a social media ban for under 16s to protect them from the algorithms that serve up so much stuff that is unacceptable. and also which demands so much attention from young people with the addictive qualities of so much that social media has with the endless scrolling, the endless looking at reels and so much of your time and attention being taken up by this. And let's be honest about it. When we have criticised Keir Starmer for not being bold, for not being brave, for not doing the things that people care about, he has been bold today.

3:06This is a bold move to take on the social media companies and to impose this ban for the under 16s. Yeah, there was quite a formal opening of this away from the hoodie and the white T-shirt, the sort of Mancunian look. When at 10 past eight, he held a press conference and there was a spontaneous, we say spontaneous, there was a round of applause when he announced this ban because there were grieving families in the room. There were families who had lost children, who had been putting a lot of pressure on Kirstama to go this extra mile and do something that wasn't just tinkering around the edges, but was an outright ban.

3:42And I think it does feel like this is quite a moment for him because we know that Kirstama is not somebody who, frankly, makes these big, bold moves lightly or easily. So the fact that the families, the consultations, the people around him have got him to this place, I think, tells you that this is something that he may or may not be seeing in terms of seismic cultural change, maybe even legacy change. Maybe there's something of the sort of the Jim Hacker, yes, prime minister to it. You know, if somebody asks him in years to come, what did you do? I think he wants to be able to turn around and say, I did this.

4:28That doesn't mean this is necessarily going to happen. We know how precarious British politics are right now. We know that we have a by-election coming up. We know that he could be replaced in a matter of weeks by somebody who doesn't share these views. But I just want to bring you a poll which I think helps explain why in one way this was a very easy win for Keir Starmer. This is from More in Common. It was taken in March of this year, but it shows the overwhelming support. Seven in ten Britons support banning social media for the under 16s. And when you look at the different parties, there is virtually nothing between them.

5:03Conservatives support it by 47%, Labour by 46%, reform by 49%, even the Green Party, who you might have thought would be the outriders and more sort of libertarian on this, 36%. In other words, you go through the parties and there is an overwhelming support for what he has done today. How does that happen? Does it happen? Is another question which we can explore now. Yeah, and that's the interesting part of this. Look, he is pushing at an open door in terms of the policy proposal. Let's have a ban for under 16s on social media. It is being tried in Australia at the moment with some success, but some mixed results.

5:47And, you know, over the next six months, when Keir Starmer says this is going to be enforced, enacted, that's an awful lot of time for social media companies to try and make mitigations or adjust or change or put pressure on a government that has shown itself when coming under pressure that it will U-turn. And so I don't think the social media companies will be thinking, oh, God, we've lost. That's it. Game over. I think they'll be looking ahead to thinking, well, there are going to be loopholes here and there are going to be areas to exploit. And I think that is where the government, the detail, the practicality of this, how this is going to be implemented, the mechanics of it get complicated.

6:33Yeah, let's tell you, let's just try and spell out what they want this ban to achieve. So they've, I mean, he's basically said they are calling time on a system that is failing our kids. In other words, once you've said that the social media situation at the moment is ruining kids' childhood, you've got to do something about it. So he said that from early spring next year, there'll be a ban on main social media apps while exempting messaging platforms and educational services. So we are now going through sort of platform by platform trying to work out who's in and who's not. We know that YouTube will be banned, but kids YouTube will not be banned.

7:13Now, at the moment, when you're uploading a video, you have to specify whether it's made for kids or not made for kids. Most people tick the not made for kids box, right? From now on, will YouTube think, well, we have to get all our stuff onto the YouTube kids platform because the other one's going to be banned for kids? And if so, will anyone regulate what is actually on YouTube kids? How do you do that? So I think that's one of the first ones. The second one is the messaging apps will stay functioning for kids, right? Like, because understandably kids say, well, we want to be able to contact our family and our friends.

7:48And this is our literal social network now. We don't want to find that we are isolated and alone and we can't actually talk to anyone. So you get that. Right. But Instagram, where a lot of kids message, will be banned. Snapchat, we think, will be banned. Signal, which is specifically for messaging, won't be banned. And Telegram, which has got all kinds of dark shit on it, will also not be banned. so I think it's understandable that the government is kind of taking its time saying well I'm not going to go through it platform by platform and we're just going to say what's you know broadly the direction of travel but as soon as you get into the specifics you're if you're a teacher you'd be like why aren't my kids allowed to do their homework via a sort of a YouTube documentary but they are allowed to get on on Telegram like that that sounds quite fucked up right and also So you've got the whole thing of a VPN, which means that, you know, can you just get round it by putting a VPN on your computer, which means that you log in as though you're somewhere else in the world or Ireland or wherever it happens to be.

8:52And then you can get on and you can get access to those things as you always have done. Except I would say, and I think this is legitimate, like people talk about the Australia one not really working because it only works for 60 or 70 percent of the time. I mean, that's fine. That's a pretty good place to start. right if you've banned 70 % from kids from being online that's great like you are going to have kids that smoke you are going to have kids that drink that's not a reason to not bring in something that you think fundamentally shifts behaviour and shifts the legality of what they do I thought Keir Starmer had a very good answer to that when he spoke from Downing Street this morning he said look I know it's not going to be 100 % I know that you know it's like there are kids that occasionally have a drink what am I meant to do?

9:36say that there doesn't need to be an alcohol ban for 12 year olds? No, you have the law in place. You have the kind of measures in place in the hope that there is a degree of acceptance and a cultural change that goes with it. And I think that's the key point. Yeah, I mean, actually, if you talk to sort of parents of younger kids now, they will say, what we need is a message that goes out that the same rule applies to everyone so that your kid can't say, oh, you know, my friends are all on that. Why can't I? My friends all have that. Why can't I? Parents need something that feels like a one size fits all response to social media so that they can go, we are implementing this and you'll find that it's the same for all your friends, too.

10:19The one thing I'd say in terms of unintended consequences, I say this as a sort of, you know, slightly guilty mother. Parents will have to work a lot harder when this ban comes in. Right. because we've all thrown those machines and that time at our kids and kind of gone, oh, I'm sure it'll be fine. You know, I'm sure it'll be fine. And actually, when they are banned, all that parenting gets harder. You know, it's more time consuming. You have to start putting in, I mean, maybe not with 14 year olds, but certainly with younger kids, you probably have to be more present. You have to, you know, work out what these kids are going to be doing now when all that stuff has gone.

11:00So it's going to be on us. So I think that's a really interesting question which has brought criticism of the government's approach which is this puts the onus of responsibility exactly as you've just said emily on the parents whereas shouldn't the onus of responsibility be on the social media companies themselves aren't they the ones the way you should breathe fire and tell them what they've got to do and in a sense yes of course you know in terms of age verification there will be emphasis on social media companies and if they don't do it there will be measures taken against them but ultimately you're you know the social media companies aren't changing what they're offering they're not changing their algorithm they're just having to authorize and check that the person is at the right age when they go on their platform and so people say well hang on sure if you want to you know don't blame the parents don't blame the kids you've got to make this about the social media companies themselves I guess I mean, I guess there are two things, right?

11:56There is the toxic material that is on social media. I mean, the stuff that we know has led to tragedy and hideous and sort of teenagers taking their own lives and all the rest of it, which clearly has to be the responsibility of social media companies. And then there's something which is kind of much more benign, but in a weird way, just as pernicious, which is if your kids are just watching reels of like dogs or games or, you know, Minecraft, whatever, it's not dangerous, dangerous. But do you want them doing it for 10 hours? Right. And so I suppose that's where the question of the ban comes in.

12:36It's not actually what the social media companies have on their platform all the time. It's the fact that if you want to change the culture, if you want kids to actually put down their phones or kind of have a sort of in real life IRL kind of communication with their friends, then even if they're just watching stuff about ice cream, it's not great to be doing that kind of at three in the morning. I mean, just to make this point, the BBC were in a classroom when the sort of ban the announcement came this morning. and well we're going to play it for you because it kind of sums up the look on the faces of these kids I mean hyper unimpressed as you would understandably imagine but just have a listen earlier we looked at screen time what was your screen time over the weekend nine hours nine hours so suddenly you're going to have a lot more time to fill and what will you do stare at a wall it's terrible okay i mean jesus that's depressing now i understand like teenage angst you would always say that wouldn't you you'd say paint my bedroom black this is the end of my life you've just ruined my life exactly but i guess that is the point there will be kids who are online now who will suddenly find that they're not and yeah they've got to do something with that nine hours a day.

13:53Well, let us speak now to Kanishka Narayan, who is the Minister for AI and Online Safety. Welcome to the newsagents. Can you say categorically that this is going to happen? Well, let me say, what is the benchmark that defines whether this is a success or not? And to me, the benchmark is twofold. One, I think the rates of compliance have to be decently high. I don't think they have to be 100%. You look at seatbelts, you look at banning drinking in pubs or smoking in pubs, the compliance isn't 100 % on day one, but it's high enough to do the second thing, which is does it change culture in the long term?

14:28In five years' time, we're sitting here. Does the next generation of teenagers grow up feeling like the default for them doesn't have to be hours and hours on social media? On those two benchmarks, I feel very optimistic about what we can do. So it's a cultural change before it's a legislative change, really? Well, I think laws are both rules, but they're also expressions of values and they set the tone of where our culture is going. we've expressed a very clear value today which is we want parents and young people to have control over their lives online rather than technology forcing them into a particular context.

14:58Keir Starmer wasn't always a fan of this ban I think it's you know no secret to say was who was pushing this what what finally kind of got him to a point where he has done something that virtually no other country in the world has done. Well I think the biggest thing is that over the last three months we've engaged with a record number of people 116 ,000 people have engaged with us on a consultation. I've been playing basketball, football, cricket. I've been toasting marshmallows with families and young people in Cumbria. And what we've heard is a pervasive scale of harm that young people are experiencing online that is felt in every part of the country.

15:32And the Prime Minister directly heard from bereaved families on multiple occasions as well. Just take us through the mechanics of this, because what we heard today was the political political aspiration and there's no doubt this is a huge uh political move by the prime minister and it puts britain in a very prominent position in terms of the rest of the world over what is happening here but how do you affect it i mean how are you going to make sure that these 16 year olds do not access this material sure so let me can i firstly say this is a big cultural move because it's the exercise of democratic agency over big tech platforms but in terms of implementation The way it works, I think, at the crux of it is making sure that age verification happens robustly.

16:15We can dive into that if that's of interest. Is that about ID cards then? No, I don't think it is necessarily about ID cards at all. But then how do you do it without a digital ID card? So let's run through this. Already in the law, we have something called highly effective age assurance. Unlike Australia, which sets a lower bar, it says reasonable steps need to be taken. We are saying you need highly effective age assurance. in practice, one thing that could be is if I've had a social media account for more than, say, 15, 16 years, you can tell I'm not going to be under 16. So that's been the case for my devices.

16:44It's been the case, my Apple account, for example, it's been the case for some platforms as well. So that's one form of check that can be highly effective. You need to show, do you meet the bar of highly effective? A second can be facial recognition, which in some cases is highly effective. It's particularly effective for telling under or over 18. If that's not highly effective, then you need to try and say, hey, are there forms of identity that you're able to validate? You could tell 15 to 16 by your face. I'm not sure I could. So I think at the moment, the technology is very good at telling whether you're under 18 or over 18.

17:1316 as a threshold is not as developed. People are working on improving the technology. So the test and practice we're setting is highly effective age assurance. Can you discharge that duty that you are using highly effective age assurance? It doesn't have to mean the most intrusive form. It can be much lower than that. But ultimately, the test is, are we making sure this is complied with sufficiently? What happens if a social media company says, you know what, screw it, we're not going to offer our services in the UK if this is what the UK government is doing? Well, look, I think people have said to me, have you kind of done the economic calculation on this?

17:47The big answer is children's safety is a moral principle. It is not an input into an economic calculus. And so what we are saying is the level of damage that young people are experiencing at the moment is unacceptable. We will put our foot down. I think there are a bunch of other things that we're doing last week. And we announced billions and billions of investment. There's a huge amount that I'm doing every single day to secure jobs and investment in technology and AI. I think there's a separate and fundamentally compatible thing with keeping young people safe. Let's go to the specifics, because some of the sort of choices seem pretty arbitrary.

18:22you won't allow YouTube but you will allow YouTube kids I mean if you talk to my my sons would say that they were sent to YouTube the whole time for homework literally for documentaries for videos for you know examples of stuff so they won't have access to that if they're on YouTube kids the whole the whole thing about YouTube kids is you know when you're uploading a video you have to specify if it's made for kids or not made for kids. Most people choose the not made for kids box. So it's pretty limited. You've then got places like Telegram, which isn't banned, primarily a messaging app, which Ofcom is investigating over concerns that illegal content includes child sexual abuse.

19:05So how do you reconcile no YouTube, yes, Telegram? Sure. I think the fundamental thing is that I'm not sitting here trying to make arbitrary platform-specific decisions. We've got a coherent basis in the law that we'll rely on. The biggest indication of that is Australia's list. Australia's list says if it's a user-to-user service with algorithmic content recommended and user self-posting, that's the broad scope of what is captured. And so that list is indicative. I don't want to go platform by platform, but let me... But that's important, I think, because, you know, it's all very well to say this is our intention and this is our culture and this is what we want to change.

19:40But it does come down to specifics. Totally, totally. So because we're working through the legal drafting of it, I won't comment on platforms, but let me tackle both categories you described. I mean, you say everything messaging is fine. So let me be very clear. Why not take messaging firstly? Private messaging is distinct from social media in two ways. One, the feedback we've had consistently from families in particular is that they deeply rely on private messaging in very acute situations to communicate with young people. And so to outright ban that for young people doesn't feel right, any form of private messaging.

20:11And it's very hard to ban individual platforms and law, as you'll know very well. And so for private messaging, that one exception applies. But a lot of people Instagram private message, right? They DM on Instagram, they DM on Snapchat. Platforms where private messaging is an ancillary feature rather than the primary way in which harm is perpetrated is a very different category. And so we've allowed platforms which are almost exclusively private messaging platforms. We're not going to ban those. But the second thing is there are also some very acute and differential privacy aspects to private messaging platforms as well.

20:44So what we are saying is that we will continue to regulate them. We're not letting them off the hook. We are continuing to regulate them. I feel the weight of having to do that much better and be much tougher on acting against them. Telegram is an example that you've brought up as well. Are you worried about Telegram? Of course. Of course I'm worried because I've seen both what the regulators have said, but I've also heard personally instances of young people and families describing some of the more challenging things that they've had. So we're not letting them off the hook. We're regulating robustly.

21:12We will return to the what it means is that platforms, messaging platforms where kids are significantly present, have a legal duty at the moment to follow child safety protocols. But if that were working, you do that with all of them all the time. I mean, you can't just say we're regulating robustly to something that has sort of slipped into your list when it probably shouldn't be. Right. I mean, if you could regulate robustly, you just do that the whole time. Well, no, because you're clearly seeing in private messaging as I've described, the tradeoffs are different than social media. On social media, the harms are so acute and the upside is so limited that we've bannered.

21:45On private messaging, the regulation, by the way, has been enforced for less than a year. Of course, it's got to be better. We've got to act faster and tougher enforcing it. But it's a very different conversation to the one we're having on social media. You seem to be putting an awful lot of emphasis. I mean, is this a philosophical thing that the onus is on the parents, The onus on the kids of denying them access rather than telling the social media companies, this is what you have to do. Totally wrong. The onus is clearly on tech platforms. There is no liability on parents. We're not going to go around enforcing this on parents.

22:22There's no liability on children. The fundamental liability is on tech platforms. What is the sanction available if they don't comply with it? the sanction available at the moment on regulation is all the way up to 10 % of global turnover that is available as a fine to the regulator. How do you get that? And if that's not enough, if that's not enough, we will go further, Stirl, as well. How do you do that? You're not going to get a company to hand over 10 % of their global turnover to the UK government? What we have consistently seen, actually, I think what we've consistently seen is that the threat of that and the fines that Ofcom has enforced, millions of finds already have started to shape different product choices already.

23:00And so we're seeing some improvements. As I say, it's less than a year. We're seeing some improvements. But the fact that the UK government can do that alongside the Australian government, alongside other governments, ends up actually in a different place. You've heard from the Molly Rose Foundation, obviously. There are people who feel that Keir Summer, that the government, has let the companies off the hook because all that happens now is that children have to be the ones banned. And the companies carry on spewing whatever, you know, gross stuff they want, quite frankly. And essentially the government saying, well, we're just story of a problem down the line.

23:32I mean, the Molly Rose Foundation believes that this is capitulation, not help. You know, I have huge respect for Ian Russell and the Molly Rose Foundation. They have shaped a lot of our thinking on a number of questions. And I want to pay tribute to what Ian has done in the face of the worst. But now you're going to say he's wrong. But the second thing to say is, it's not as simple as that. The second thing to say is there are a large number of Brewery families who are in Downing Street today, who are going to be in Parliament later, who have said this is the biggest restoration of democratic control over tech platforms in this country.

24:02And so I totally refute the idea that this is capitulation, specifically on the concern that Ian and Molly Rose have raised, which is how can you make sure regulation and features regulation continues rather than just levelling that down? We are not going to do that. We have said very clearly, yes, we're banning it. It's a break glass moment for under 16s. But alongside it, we are levelling up on regulation on features and functionalities for things like live streaming and stranger contact features that are really harmful. The regulation will be even more robust and we're going to make sure the regulator is robustly resourced to enforce them.

24:33Are you saying these tech companies have almost stolen childhoods? You know, that is my experience of engaging with young people. I feel I remember being in a school in Bristol and a young kid said to me he had spent 10 hours, his screen time, he showed me 10 hours on his screen. And he said when he goes to bed at night as well, that he finds it very hard to get off his phone too. And so there's a clear sense right across this country that the amount of time, the chronic impact, as well as the acute harms, are so extensive. It is not the childhood that I think any of us want for kids in this country.

25:10Do you not accept that there are also good things that come out of social media? The 14 year old kid who thinks he might be gay, can't talk to anyone at school, but yet finds a community on social media where there may be comfort, there may be solace, there may be a sense of identity gained through that. I definitely feel that. And look, no question of public policy that is important is uncontested. And it's a sort of clear cut pros only with no cons. What we're saying is the overall weight of the calculus here is so clearly in one direction. That's why we're banning it. But the example you raise is really important, because I've heard in particular from members of the LGBTQ community, and from young people who are neurodivergent who have said, hey, we find solace and community online.