Tenberal Opinion, Tenberal correspondent Simon Wong reports: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer pictured at a news conference announcing the social media ban on Monday.

Following Spain and Australia's ban on social media for under-16s, the Labour government under Sir Keir Starmer has joined and introduced a new ban on social media for under-16s. As part of this, the government will now require social media platforms to have strict policy regarding their age-verifying protocols. Earlier in May, in a government's consultation for the ban has over 116,000 respondents and of which, according to the limited data avaliable, just over 40% of the repsondents agree to this (despite we expected more). This is a detailed breakdown of the information we are aware of:

Sector	Total Consultation Responses	% of Total Sector Participating	Overall Opinion
Parents & Carers	54,127 (Combined survey & panel)	~0.38%	~90% Agree with the ban. ~10% Disagree.
Children & Young People	14,130 (Combined survey & panel)	~0.11%	~66% Agree under-16s should be blocked on some apps. ~34% Disagree with full blanket blocks.
Full Consultation / Professionals	24,813 (Full surveys & emails)	~4.1%	Broad Support from unions for safer environments, but Disagreement from select children's commissioners fearing unregulated spaces.
Organized Campaigns	33,141 (Template submissions)	N/A	Split between targeted child-safety advocacy groups and digital rights campaigns.
TOTAL	116,211	~0.44%	Expected to be in favour of legal age thresholds for safety.

The ban is spanning across most common social medias in the UK, including Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Threads, and X (formerly Twitter). The government has also banned features allowing livestreaming or communication with strangers, romantic AI chatbots for under-18s and potentially, considering overnight curfews and enforced breaks in infinite scrolling for under-18s. We expect the ban to be in place by Sping 2027 and the Independents reported that Ofcom is researching on Highly Effective Age Assurance (HEAA) technological measures, which may include facial age estimation, photo ID, or bank checks.

The following section of the report is part of Tenberal Opinion, the opinion is solely to the writer or contributor and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Tenberal News.

It is not definitely not a difficult job to consider the countless potential failures of the ban: consider the efficiency of the ban and the frankly, attack on freedom of expressional and democracy: values that the UK government has long-valued for. As journalists, we have the responsibility to tell you the most perspectives as possible and this is also as part of our motto: Truth needs arguing. Unquestionably, the ban for under-16s will bring some advantages, such as:

Protects under-16s from the anxiety, depression, sleep deprivation, and body image issues that social media has brought, according to the government.
Removes access to persuasive design features like infinite scroll and loop notifications, giving children back control over their attention span.
Eliminates 24/7 digital vectors for online harassment, exclusion, and social anxiety outside of school hours, as well as exposure to online grooming and other sexual inapporpriateness.
Encourages time for vital real-world activities, including physical exercise, face-to-face friendships, hobbies, and focused schoolwork.

However, considering the impact of the ban will bring, is it necessary for a full ban on social media for under-16s or should government lead social media platform into implementing stricter control for its content, as Starmer have said, "I am not prepared to compromise." If Ofcom is going to research on technologies that verifies ages, then why not spending more time to limit what the offender can do on the social media.

Not only this, the social media ban could have immense impact on children's lives, just to name a few:

It could be considered as an attack on freedom of expression as children no longer have a platform to express their opinion and gained access to information, or connections with others.
Children now lacked the ability to verify what's true and what's false, which is a fundamental skills for future lives.
This ban affects the UK, from its societal impact to the economy, and only 0.44% of all people in the UK have responded. Previously, we have seen a public vote on Brexit and it is plausible to consider the social media ban as important as Brexit.
Tenberal News' independent survey suggested that a majority of 80% children disagreed with the ban and believed that social media brought valuable times, memory and connection with other people. In our survey, one repsondent asked, "If the government allowed teenager at 16 years old to join the army, and not scrolling on social media?"
According to our investigation, over 60% of teenagers still have at least one account on a social media platform in Australia and Spain. Should anyone happen to discover the mythical, flawless age-verification system, I am certain that Pedro and Anothony are eagerly awaiting for it.
Teachers organisation and media giants, like Meta, have pointed out that children tend to move to unregulated platforms if such ban is in place.
This is perhaps the biggest flaw of the system: privacy. Age verification means that the device and the government now gain access to your perosnal data: such as your facial features and your credit card information. Back in 2008, Lord Justice Sedley of Court of Appeal had argued for a universal DNA database, and this has been rejected by the Labour's Gordon Brown due to privacy and civil liberties concern. If the government has prioritise the importance of privacy and civil liberties over deduction of crime detection rate. Why has Starmer's government repeatedly taking away the basic human rights that everyone deserved?
Children have to learn anyways, under-16s have schools to educate them about their experience on social media and have government-checked mental health support, but as they dropped out of compluusory schooling, they are allowed to go on these platforms without any education.
Last but nor least, cultural minorities, children with rare medical condition, non-governmental organisation and the LGBTQIA+ communities may required financial and mental healths support from the social media and banning social media for them could take away their lifelines.

The biggest question here is: are there any better ways to ensure the safety of children on social media? Yes, there is, social media giants have been developing their tools in preventing the exploitation of their platform, in our investigation, searching for terminologies that perhaps lead to these exploitations resulted in a page with community guidelines and platforms like, Snapchat, Tiktok, has offered parental control features. Also, with the developement of AI, would the better way be having more regualtion and allowing parents to have more controls than strict regulation?

The social media ban is expected to be very controversial and you have the power to take your side.

Tenberal Opinion - Under-16s Social Media Ban: Is it Helping or Destroying Teenagers' Lives?

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