The UK government have announced a ban on social media platforms for British people under the age of 16, encompassing Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X.com (known hereabouts as MechaHitler.com or Xitter, among other lousy putdowns). The ban is expected to come into force in spring 2027, and will have far-reaching impacts on ye olde videogame discourse, because people do so love to share and talk about games on social media.
The under-16s ban will also directly apply to certain gaming “services”, though prime minister Keir Starmer and his minions have yet to specify which. It won’t, apparently, “affect the ability for children to participate in multiplayer games online”.
The government are also thinking about age-gating access to “gaming sites” at large, which I guess could include Rock Paper Shotgun. How many of you are Limeys under the age of 16? Going by the aroma of the jokes in our comments, I’m pretty sure the average RPS reader was born in the Bronze Age, but I’d love to be corrected. I’d love to realise that we’ve been Down With The Kids, all this time, even if it means that a sizeable chunk of our traffic is about to be deleted by the feds.
The proposed ban is framed as a response to a public survey of around 116,000 people, which indicates “overwhelming public backing for tougher action”, according to the government’s press release. It also follows a number of stories in the UK national media about children being exposed to disturbing things via social media, and in general, negatively affected by access to manipulative content algorithms.
The ban is modelled on similar laws in Australia, introduced about six months ago, but it seeks to go much further. “The government will also be looking in more detail at overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for under-18-year-olds and will set out more detail in July,” the guidance continues. The new laws will also prohibit under-18s from accessing “so-called AI ‘romantic companion’ chatbots – designed to simulate sexual relationships or roleplay with users”, together with “similar intimate functionalities” for AI chatbots at large.
“Educational services, e-commerce platforms [and] music streaming” will be exempt from the proposed ban; presumably, this includes things like Amazon product reviews. Direct messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal won’t be restricted, either.
The proposed bans continue a crackdown on child internet use initiated by the Online Safety Act last year, care of which Steam users now have to verify their age using a credit card. There has been an associated fall in British porno traffic, partly offset by the use of Virtual Private Networks to bypass barricades erected by Ofcom, our digital regulator. Expect VPN usage to spike again next year, if the social media ban goes through.
It seems likely the announcement is also timed to rebuff the behaviour of one particular social media tycoon, Elon Musk, owner of the most punchable face in existence, who has been using Xitter to whip up far right sentiment on the streets of Britain. The Starmer government is currently trying to walk the line of scolding Musk for his smirking antics, while also being “pro-tech” and especially, pro-AI.
As far as I know, Musk and Xitter have yet to officially comment on the news, but other social media platforms have spoken up. “As we’ve seen in Australia, bans risk isolating teens from online communities and information, and driving them to unregulated alternatives that lack built-in protections and parental controls,” reads a statement from Meta, owner of Instagram and Facebook. Google-owned Youtube add that “blanket bans push kids out of such curated, supervised, beneficial experiences and towards anonymous, less-safe services.”
UK videogame trade body UKIE has also posted a statement via GamesIndustry.biz, welcoming the restrictions while arguing that games publishers have already done a lot of work to render their services child-safe. UKIE are also up for collaborating further with the UK government on regulation. It’s an effort to get one hand on the whip, basically.
“We welcome the recognition in today’s announcement that games are distinct from social media,” reads the statement. “Through initiatives like the PEGI age rating system, we have provided parents and players with clear, trusted guidance on age-appropriate game content for more than 20 years. Major platforms have demonstrated significant safety innovation in this area, including communication features which are switched off by default for child accounts. We have offered to act as a technical partner to Government to co-create regulatory frameworks appropriate to games and to provide evidence on what is working.”
To my mind, the obvious targets for an under-16 ban are Discord – a gaming-dedicated service that is used for a lot of other things, these days – and Roblox, the sandbox game creation behemoth that attracts a vast audience of young teenagers. In recent times, both have sought to render their services safer for kids – a tricky journey for Roblox, which makes a fair bit of money off the fact that kids are more susceptible to scams.
Roblox recently resorted to facial age estimation technology, after a US prosecutor branded their service “the perfect place for pedophiles”. Discord now operate a global age inference model that runs in the background. It feels like both companies have been aware for a while that punitive legislation is in the offing.
In general, this is one of those situations where I fear and mistrust all concerned. True, social media use can be absolute poison, and the likes of Musk can go goosestep on Mars, but I agree with the argument that a blanket ban will simply drive the worst aspects of Xitter, Instagram, etc underground.
“Children will be given back their childhoods thanks to government action to ban social media platforms from offering services to under-16s, with less time for scrolling and more time for play,” reads the government guidance above. As summaries go, it doesn’t make a good case for the government understanding why children like social media, and therefore, how the platforms could be altered to serve them better. So much “play” is now digital, so much community is now online, and while kids may be easier prey for “dark patterns” and such, they are not utterly without agency. To frame them as helpless innocents risks becoming a form of abuse.
Here is Amnesty International’s take on things: “You cannot solve a design problem with an access ban. If the diagnosis is that social media platforms are harming children, the remedy should be to regulate the platforms, not exclude children.”
