By Muvija M and Sam Tabahriti
LONDON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Britain will consider tightening rules on children's use of social media with no option "off the table," Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Tuesday, warning that they risked being pulled into "a world of endless scrolling, anxiety and comparison."
Starmer said his Labour government was prepared to take "robust action", a day after it said it would examine whether features such as infinite scrolling and the age at which children can access platforms
should be restricted.
The government said it would examine evidence from around the world on suggested proposals including looking at whether a social media ban for children would be effective and how best to make such a ban work if it were imposed.
Ministers will visit Australia, which last month became the first country to ban social media for children under 16, to learn from their approach, it said on Monday.
'CHILDREN NEED SPACE TO GROW'
The government did not mention a particular age limit, but said it was exploring a ban for children "under a certain age" and measures such as better age checks.
"As I have been clear, no option is off the table," Starmer said on Substack.
He said technology had great potential to improve lives and open opportunities for young people.
"But being a child should not be about constant judgement from strangers or the pressure to perform for likes. Children need space to grow," he said. "For too many today, it means being pulled into a world of endless scrolling, anxiety and comparison."
Starmer said parents would be offered evidence-based advice on how long children aged five to 16 should spend on phones, tablets and computers, with separate guidance for under-fives to be published in April.
Mobile phones "have no place in classrooms", with education regulator Ofsted set to check bans are properly enforced, he said.
An explosion of online content generated by artificial intelligence has exacerbated concerns, highlighted by a public outcry over reports of Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot generating non-consensual sexual images, including of minors.
This has prompted closer scrutiny in Britain of how children and teenagers use social media, with lawmakers and regulators looking at safeguards for younger users against risks to their development and mental health.
Britain has set out plans for a ban on AI nudification tools and is working to stop children being able to take, share or view nude images on their devices. It is considering removing or limiting functionalities that could drive addictive or compulsive use of social media, such as infinite scrolling.
Britain's Online Safety Act has increased the share of children encountering age checks online to 47% from 30% and cut visits to pornography sites by a third, the government says.
But "these laws were never meant to be the end point," Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said.
(Reporting by Muvija M and Sam Tabahriti; Editing by David Gregorio, Bill Berkrot and Timothy Heritage)
