UK PM Keir Starmer's social media ban: Why apps including TikTok and YouTube will be restricted

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announcing a ban on social media for anyone under the age of 16. The latest country joining a global movement trying to protect children from harmful content and social media addiction. Here to break it down is The Hill's senior technology reporter Miranda Nazaro. Hey Miranda, so what are the terms of this ban? How will it work? Sure, so today as you mentioned Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that they are moving towards this ban. They are planning to implement it. It will have to go through the parliament, but given the Prime Minister's blessing, I'm sure it won't face too much backlash. Essentially, the ban will apply to kids under 16, and it will be the technology company's responsibility to make sure that kids under this age will be kept off of the platforms. He made very clear during the press conference today that enforcement will not be a problem for the kids themselves. He fully expects 13-year-olds could try to use their parents' accounts, VPNs, that sort of thing. So it will be up to the platforms, many of which are US tech companies. We have Meta Included, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, that sort of thing. And it is essentially, as we've seen in some other countries, looking to keep kids offline under that age because of the potential to see harmful content or contact strangers, be messaged by strangers, as well as just get addicted to the platforms themselves. The White House last week warned the UK not to impose a ban out of concern it would put a burden on US tech companies. What can we expect the response to be from the Trump administration and the tech companies themselves? Right. So the letter to the UK government was sent by the White House just under a week ago. And in that letter, basically, the White House, the Trump administration had said that they don't support an all-out ban, calling it a concern about free speech, but they did say it should be up to the parents. And this seems to be where the Trump administration largely stands on the issue of kids' safety. They have supported various pieces of legislation relating to limiting what children can do online. However, they have steered clear of any sort of all-out ban. Now, the technology companies themselves have pushed back in times past about these sorts of bans. It will not surprise me at all once they start issuing public statements. A lot of them, again, are in favor of parents having more of a role, but feel like a blanket ban is basically censorship, as well as doesn't take into consideration the nuances of how social media could help kids or gaming services or live streaming platforms. And that was another notable extension from other social media bans in other countries, was that they will also ban certain streaming platforms, as well as gaming services, which we know are very heavily used by kids, especially in that preteen range. So I'm sure the Trump administration does not agree with this, just given the letter last week. But it's also not that surprising. We've seen the administration and EU, for example, clash a lot. And obviously, this is a little bit different. But I think European countries as a whole have sort of signaled where they stand, and there's not much the admin can do about that. This is not the UK, not the first country to move against social media for kids. We've seen countries all over the world implement similar restrictions. Do you think this is becoming the new normal? Can we expect other countries to head in this direction? So I think that Australia was the first, and that was in late December of last year. So this is a fairly newer trend we are seeing. But governments, as well as the technology companies themselves, are under this growing pressure to do something more to protect kids online. Since the invention, if you will, of social media in the 2000s and 2010 era, it basically hasn't been until the last maybe eight or nine years that we've started to see real studies being done on how social media does impact children. And as those come out, they often don't look too good for the social media companies, often showing a negligence of kids' safety. And we know here in the US, companies have already been now civilly found liable, including Meta itself. So I think that we could see it a bit more, I don't think, in the US whatsoever. I also think, too, though, that the lobby for social media companies is large. So I think they're probably going to start investing in more defense there, and it could at least stall some of these efforts. All right, we'll leave it at that and continue to follow the story. For now, though, senior technology reporter Miranda Nazaro, thank you.