UK plans social media curfew for teens aged 16 and 17

The UK government announced plans to establish a social media curfew for teens aged 16 and 17, the BBC reported. The news comes a month after the UK announced a ban on social media for children under 16, and days after the EU announced a similar ban for children under 13.

The curfew would restrict use of social media apps like Instagram and YouTube, and would be from the hours of midnight to 6:00 a.m. But there will apparently be a way to opt out of this.

Currently, the UK is under the Online Safety Act, an age assurance law that requires proof of age to see content deemed "restricted to adults," such as pornography, but also extends to non-explicit content like forums about addiction.

The law, which went into effect in July 2025, is often circumvented by software such as VPNs, which mask a person's real location. While the UK considered a VPN ban for children, the BBC reported that that's no longer on the table.

"We have decided not to limit VPNs today and that's the primary conclusion for now but it is something we will continue to review," the UK's online safety minister, Kanishka Narayan, said on BBC Breakfast, referring to research on VPNs that suggested there wasn't much evidence they were being used by children to get around age checks.

Narayan also discussed the potential curfew as well as limiting autoplay features, saying, "Britain is already going to be the most robust place in the world when it comes to regulating" tech companies.

Critics, meanwhile, told the BBC the plan wasn't comprehensive. Andy Burrows, chief executive of the suicide prevention organization, the Molly Rose Foundation, said in a BBC interview, "While we welcome these measures for older teens, this latest move is yet another piecemeal set of announcements, not the comprehensive plan for children's safety that's required."

A social media ban for minors under 16 was enacted in Australia in Dec. 2025, but a recent study suggests it doesn't prevent under-16s from logging onto these platforms.