THEAnd evenings spent scrolling the smartphone screen before sleepingfor the children of British families it could soon become a memory. Prime Minister Keir Starmer made the announcement this morning a total ban on social media for children under 16a measure that the London government defines as the most ambitious ever adopted in Europe on this front. Great Britain has decided that it is no longer willing to tolerate so-called infinite scrolling, that function that platforms have designed specifically to prevent you from stopping. This is not a recommendation. It’s a real ban, with real sanctions for companies that don’t respect it.
Social media prohibited under 16: an uncompromising choice
The words of the prime minister were clear: «Social media makes kids unhappy»in no uncertain terms. And he added that he is not willing “to compromise on their safety and happiness.” The ban will affect all major platforms, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube andwith the sole exception of WhatsApp, Meta’s messaging service which the government considers different in nature and use. In London, however, this alone is not enough, and so it goes beyond simply banning registration.
Digital curfew from 8.30pm for all minors
If social media is banned for children under sixteen, for those under 18, therefore all minorsthe introduction of a real digital curfew: from 8.30 pm onwards, the platforms must be inaccessible. Along with this, we study the infinite scrolling blockthat function that transforms browsing into a habit that is difficult to break. The measure will arrive in Parliament by Christmas, with the aim of making it operational in the spring of 2027.
The first country to do so was Australia. Since then, Britain, France, Spain and a dozen other states have followed or are about to follow. (Getty Images)
But how to verify the bans?
The application of the rules will not be the task of the police, no one is going to chase kids onlineStarmer clarified. Technology companies will have to respect the bans. These will be a having to build reliable age verification systemsbased on digital documents, credit cards or facial recognition, and those who don’t comply risk fines in the tens of millions of pounds.
Social media banned, what happens in the rest of the world: Australia leads the way
The model that inspired London is the Australian one, which currently remains the most severe in the world. As of December 2025, the Canberra government has become the first in the world to legally ban access to social media to all children under the age of sixteen. The platforms involved are always Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, but also Snapchat, Threads, Reddit, Twitch and Kick, and those who do not comply with the rule risk fines of up to around fifty million Australian dollars. Since the law has been in force, the platform giants they revoked access to approximately four million seven hundred thousand accounts identified as belonging to minors.
So is the problem solved?
Despite this, it is estimated that in Australia, sixty percent of teenagers are still on social media. Starmer is not naive and he knows that many kids will try to get around the blockperhaps using a VPN, a virtual private network that masks your online identity and allows you to appear to be connected from another country, but responded with a direct comparison: iThe fact that minors are able to purchase alcohol does not mean that the ban is wrong, it just means it needs to be applied better.
What happens around us
Britain and Australia are not alone. In the last few months a true global wave of countries that have decided to intervene has been formedeach with different age thresholds and methods. In January 2026, France has voted on a bill that imposes a total ban on social media for children under fifteen. President Macron declared “our children’s brains are not for sale”, taking a stand against the emotional manipulation exercised by algorithms of the platforms. The measure, however, still has to pass the Senate.
Everyone against social media
There Türkiye has approved the ban under fifteen years and awaits President Erdoğan’s signature. Denmark is preparing to ban access to children under fifteen and is developing a national age verification app. Greece announced the ban starting January 2027. Spain is waiting for parliamentary approval for a measure that affects those under sixteen. Indonesia has already introduced it from March 2026. Malaysia plans to do the same within the year. Canada has a pending bill.
And Italy? A law still stalled
Looking at the map of this global change, Italy occupies an awkward position: that of those who want to movehas popular support to do so, but fails to move forward. According to the Eurispes Italy 2026 Report, seventy-nine percent of Italians are in favor to ban social media for minors under the age of fifteen-sixteen. There is also bipartisan consensus in Parliament. The bill, however, has been stalled for over eight months. One thing, however, Italy has done: from September 2025, banned the use of smartphones during school hours in high schoolsafter it had already been like this in primary and middle school since 2022.
The ban in Italy
The text provides the ban on social media registration for minors under fifteen years of agewith age verification through a national digital document and it seems that, after the tragic story of the teacher stabbed by a thirteen-year-old student, the Minister of Education Valditara has announced his desire to restart. But the Meloni government seems to want to rewrite the text from scratch, expanding the measures, which risks further extending the timeframe. Meanwhile, according to the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, approximately one hundred thousand Italian teenagers between fifteen and eighteen are at risk of social media addiction.
The critical voices
Not the whole world is convinced that bans are the right answer, or at least the sufficient one. In the British case, It was the Molly Rose Foundation itself that raised doubtsnamed after a young girl who committed suicide after being exposed to harmful content online: the measures announcedaccording to the foundation, they are “inapplicable” and do not get to the root of the problem. A criticism that sounds paradoxical, because it comes from those who paid the highest price, but which raises a real question: Blocking access does not delete dangerous contentnor does it heal those who have already suffered damage.
Banned social networks: what really changes
In short, what is happening in the world, beyond individual laws, is a change in perspective. For years families have been asked to be vigilantfor kids to self-regulate, for platforms to do more voluntarily. None of these avenues worked well enough. Now governments are saying that responsibility cannot rest solely in the hands of parents, and that tech companies must be accountable for their choicesincluding infinite scrolling designed to keep you going.