White Ribbon UK’s response to the proposed social media curfew for 16 and 17-year-olds

The Government has announced plans for a default midnight-to-6am curfew across social media platforms for 16 and 17-year-olds, alongside restrictions on features such as autoplay and infinite scrolling.

While measures to encourage healthier online habits are welcome, simply limiting when young people access social media does not address the core issue, which is the content they see and experience online.  

Although the proposed safety settings would be enabled by default, they can still be switched off, raising doubts about their effectiveness in practice.

The issue with social media isn't just the amount of time young people spend online; it's what they encounter while they're there. Harmful content, abuse and misogyny remain widespread across platforms, and having optional settings won't change that.

If the Government is serious about tackling online abuse, it must go further. Technology companies should be held to account for designing platforms that amplify and profit from harmful and misogynistic content, instead of placing the burden on individuals to manage these risks themselves.

Safe content shouldn't be an optional extra or something reserved for children and young people. It must be the standard across every social media platform, for every user and age group, so that preventing online harm is built into technology from the outset, helping to prevent harm before it happens.