Labour MP Patrick Hurley explains why he supports the government’s decision to consult on further steps to protect children online, including whether access to social media should be restricted for under-16s.
Patrick Hurley is the Labour MP for Southport
There is no real argument any more about whether social media affects children’s wellbeing. We can all see that it does. The question is what we do next.
For me, this is not an abstract issue. My wife is a teacher, and she sees every day how the online world follows children into school. She sees the anxiety that comes from constant comparison, the distraction of phones, and the way problems that start online quickly end up in the classroom. Teachers are being asked to deal with issues that simply did not exist a generation ago. They are ill-equipped to deal with them, but so is society more generally.
This is not about being anti-technology. Used properly, the internet can help young people learn and stay in touch with friends. But we should also be honest about the fact that today’s social media platforms were not built with children in mind. These platforms are built around algorithms, endless feeds and notifications that are meant to keep users engaged. Expecting children to manage that environment on their own, often late at night, is unrealistic, especially when many adults struggle with it too. They want to get us addicted to the next dopamine hit of notifications or endless scrolling. I can just about cope with that as a bloke pushing 50, but a kid of 14 just isn’t remotely able to.
That is why I support the government’s decision to consult on further steps to protect children online, including whether access to social media should be restricted for under-16s.
In my Southport constituency, we have seen how quickly social media can make a bad situation worse. After the tragic stabbings in July 2024, conspiracy theories and false claims spread rapidly online, so quickly in fact that by the time I’d arrived home from Westminster on the evening of the attack, there were already thousands of false reports from bad faith actors online designed to do nothing other than cause trouble and capitalise on tensions. Rumours about what had happened and who was responsible were shared widely, before the facts were known. That added to the fear and distress felt across the community at a very difficult time.
As later investigations showed, the attacker – who was himself just 17 – had watched a violent video on social media showing the stabbing of a bishop in Sydney, just minutes before he left his home. That video was allowed to remain on the platform. Social media did not cause these crimes, but the way harmful and misleading content spreads can clearly make things worse.
Young people in our area were exposed to graphic material and speculation in real time, before there was any official information. That is not a safe or healthy situation.
The Labour government has already taken action through the Online Safety Act, which requires platforms to remove illegal content and introduce age checks. This is an important step, but it should not be the end of the discussion. Many parents feel stuck. They worry about the effect social media is having on their children, but they also worry about their child being left out if they are not online. Clearer rules could help take some of that pressure off families.
The government wants this to be a national conversation, involving children, parents, teachers and charities. Those who deal with these issues every day should have a voice in what happens next.
Some people will say that a minimum age is too blunt a tool. That is a fair point to raise, and it is why we are consulting. But doing nothing is also a choice, and it leaves children exposed to systems we already know can cause harm. Other countries, including Australia, have moved to set a minimum age for social media and to place responsibility on the platforms rather than on parents alone. We should look carefully at what we can learn from that.
At the heart of this is a simple issue: whether we are prepared to change the current system in order to better protect young people. This government believes that children’s wellbeing should come first. We will be guided by the evidence and by the experiences of families and schools.
Our children should be able to grow up without constant pressure from online platforms that were never designed with them in mind. Getting this right is not easy, but it is necessary.
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