Rishi Sunak Considers Social Media Ban For Under-16s In UK: Report

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's UK government is studying a crackdown on social media access for children under the age of 16, including potential bans, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Ministers plan to begin a consultation as soon as January to gather evidence about the extent of potential harm to children from using social media, the people said, asking not to be named because the discussions are private.

Deliberations are at an early stage and the policy may ultimately not be pursued, the people said. While they said bans were under discussion, one of the people said they were unlikely to be included in the final plan. Another said measures like a ban or improved parental controls had not been ruled out.

"We are looking broadly at this issue of keeping children safe online," Sunak's spokeswoman, Camilla Marshall, told reporters at a regular briefing Thursday, declining to comment on specific measures under consideration.

The UK recently passed the Online Safety Act to increase the responsibility of companies offering user-to-user services to protect people - particularly children - on the internet, including age verification obligations.

Meanwhile, British parents have been warned by the National Crime Agency about allowing their children on Facebook, after Meta Platform Inc's decision to introduce encrypted messaging raised concerns for their safety. On Thursday, Damian Hinds, the schools minister, urged Meta to "rethink its decision."

"It's not about protecting people's privacy," Hinds told Times Radio. "This is really a question about the ability to intercept and to ultimately investigate, bring to justice people who are engaging in child abuse."

Mr Sunak will attend Giorgia Meloni's political party convention in Rome on Saturday, which Elon Musk is also expected to attend. But while Sunak and Musk shared a stage at the UK's AI safety summit last month, a person familiar with the matter said there are no plans for the prime minister to have any formal meeting with the owner of social networking company X, formerly Twitter.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)