Two years ago, when Daisy Greenwell and a group of fellow British parents first gathered to share concerns about the risks their children faced online, the government made it clear, she said, that it had no interest in passing new laws on the issue.
“It always felt like a long way off,” said Ms. Greenwell, a founder of Smartphone Free Childhood, a British charity. “But then the political winds changed.”
Now, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government is weighing whether to introduce a ban on social media platforms for children under 16, as public opinion in Britain has coalesced around the idea that more needs to be done to keep children safe online.
Mr. Starmer said last week that the question was not whether his government would act but what it would do, and that a decision would come “very quickly.” Here is how Britain got here.
Some protections exist, but advocates say they don’t go far enough.
When the current Labour government was voted into office in 2024, it said it had no plan to restrict social media for children or to ban phones in schools.
The previous government, led by the Conservative Party, had already passed a broad law in 2023, the Online Safety Act, to regulate harmful content. The country’s media and internet regulator, known as Ofcom, enforces those regulations and can fine or prosecute tech companies that do not comply.
