Overview
- Ministers are considering a national bar on under-16s using social media, alongside raising the digital age of consent and limiting engagement features such as streaks and infinite scrolling.
- Peers are set to vote this week on a Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill amendment that would require platforms to block under-16s within a year of the legislation passing.
- The government has asked Ofsted to review school mobile phone policies and will issue screen-time guidance for ages five to 16 now, with advice for under-fives due in April, as it consults and plans a formal response in the summer.
- Smartphone Free Childhood says supporters have sent more than 200,000 letters to MPs nationwide, including 2,500 emails from Cambridgeshire in a week, as the movement claims backing from over 400,000 UK families.
- Ceredigion Council is urging families to delay smartphones until 14 and social media until 16 through a voluntary pledge, while former schools minister Lord Nash presses peers to back the ban amendment and campaigner Ian Russell warns a ban alone risks a false sense of security.