When Daisy Greenwell decided to delay giving her children a smartphone two years ago, she sought support from a friend and other parents. The WhatsApp community she created then has since swollen to more than half a million parents – most of them in groups peppered across the UK.
This week she put out a satirical video about a fictional tech billionaire urgently appealing to parents not to support proposed UK government restrictions on social media for under 16s. “We know you’re worried about what social media is doing to your children. We hear you,” the fictional 'tech bro' says.
“Before you rush to support age restrictions on social media, please spare a thought for us, a small community of social media billionaires,” he says, showing his empty pockets.
The video seeks to build on momentum generated by parents to influence a UK government consultation on how best to restrict social media access to children, which ends this month. Options vary from an outright ban for under 16s, or curfews. It was published by Smartphone Free Childhood, a campaign group launched by Ms Greenwell and her partner Joe Ryrie.
British and European efforts to regulate artificial intelligence and social media face the distractions of a trade war with the US, as well as concerted lobbying against official initiatives by technology giants. Who blinks first has become the defining issue of regulation for safeguarding fast-changing digital use, especially by young users.
Among the measures promoted by the European Union is tackling how to create an age threshold for digital usage. The EU introduced an age verification app last month for anonymised digital access by age that is has encouraged states to adopt. A pilot roll-out is under way with France, Denmark, Greece, Italy, Spain, Cyprus, and Ireland involved.
States have also deployed legal means to fight deepfakes – modified videos using imagery of real people. On Thursday, French prosecutors said they were opening an investigation against X and its owner, US businessman Elon Musk, for alleged distribution of child sexual abuse imagery.
Ms Greenwell believes the balance could soon tip in the favour of parents. “All around the world, you see movements spring up, of parents saying 'this isn't good enough for our kids',” she told The National. “We've gone from an era of techno optimism, where we thought that the internet was going to fix everything, and now we're starting to see more of the downsides.”
The challenges they face are immense. Labour MPs have voted against attempts to ban social media for under 16s three times this year. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has spoken of his doubts about a ban, citing his own children’s use of the platforms.
While some have viewed the ensuing three-month consultation as an additional delay, Ms Greenwell is optimistic it could achieve the desired results.
Australia imposed its ban late last year, while 15 other countries are considering imposing similar regulations. “It's like a game of dominoes. Once it became real and tangible that it is actually possible to do this, everyone's grown in confidence to think 'let's do the same',” Ms Greenwell said. “I think the tech companies are resigned to the fact that this is going to happen and that they're going to need to adjust their business models accordingly.”
Former UK tech minister Saqib Bhatti, a Conservative MP, has spoken of his battles in 2023/24 with social media companies that were increasingly trying to insulate themselves from online safeguards. “The move has been away from them showing responsibility,” he said, citing his own meetings with the companies themselves and whistle-blowers.
“If I can't get through to these companies as a government minister, then how can the average consumer?” he said, speaking at the centre-right think tank Onwards. “So I'm going to struggle to be convinced that the Online Safety Act wasn't required, because there is huge need for it.”
Mr Bhatti told The National it was possible for the UK to uphold its “principles-based approach” to regulation without damaging its relationship with the US.
“We’re asking the social media companies to hold themselves to the same terms and conditions that we all sign up to. They have responsibilities, too, and then we have to work with our American counterparts to ensure that they understand where we're coming from,” he said.
Children access social media for the first time at an average age of 9.6 years, despite the minimum age on most social media platforms being 13 years old, according to research conducted by child advocacy groups Eurochild, ECPAT and Terre des Hommes.
"This suggests that the real issue is weak enforcement and the way platforms are designed, rather than the absence of rules," Eurochild told The National.
French MP Laure Miller, who has been pushing for a ban for under 15s, has similarly waged an uphill battle. She says regulation is needed to protect young people from social media giants with algorithms designed to capture our attention.
“It's like David against Goliath,” Ms Miller told the representative council of Jewish institutions in France in February. “Children who spend several hours a day on these networks are not at fault; they are victims of platforms that do everything to develop compulsive usage.”
Medical evidence is beginning to play a role in the campaigning for new laws. Dr Jen Lee, of Healthcare Workers for Smarter Screens, urged the government to take into account the experiences of front-line workers in its consultation, after the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges described social media use in children as a “public health emergency damaging our children’s mental and physical health”.
“Frontline health workers need to have a much bigger voice in terms of policy-making. The government consultation does not provide that option,” Dr Lee said.
Coalitions needed
Teaming up with Europe and Australia on restrictions would help to pressure social media companies and make it easier for governments to take them on, she added.
The EU verification App gives users a digital ID card to prove their age on social media platforms without revealing personal details.
Individual EU nations are also looking to pass laws that would restrict age access, with cut off ages from 15 in France and Greece, to 16 in Spain.
But on Thursday, it delayed key measures in its own landmark AI Act, regulating high-risk tech systems including biometrics rules. The law also bans AI practices which create unauthorised sexually explicit images and introduces a watermark for Ai generated imagery.
At a press conference in Brussels, MEP Arba Kokalari pushed back against allegations that delays were introduced to appease the German industrial sector. Ms Kokalari said the new rules would bring much-needed clarity, so that Europe "can take on the competition against China and the US in the tech race".
Unlike Australia, EU digital rules involve complex negotiations between EU institutions and nations. Laws take longer to be adopted across 27 countries but are more powerful once they are enforced across the continent, which is the world's largest single market.
In a bid to harmonise efforts on legislating on a social media ban for teenagers, European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, has sought advice from top mental health experts. On March 5, she convened the first special panel on child safety online, which is set to present recommendations to the commission by summer.
But the US accuses Europe of clamping down on free speech and has imposed heavy handed measures. In December, Washington sanctioned five EU figures, including former commissioner Thierry Breton, who were involved in efforts to curb online hate speech and misinformation.
European Commission officials accused Meta and TikTok of violating its Digital Services Act, the EU's content moderation law.
The legal fight is expected to last years. Renate Nikolay, Deputy Director-General at the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, has defended the DSA. Speaking this week on a Politico panel, Ms Nikolay said that platforms have already introduced some of the features that would never have happened without the DSA, including "design features to protect users better, adjustments to their notice and action system, [and] to their transparency activities."
Transatlantic tensions are likely to continue. US ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, recently told news website Euractiv that a tech sovereignty package scheduled to be unveiled by the commission this month could jeopardise an EU-US trade agreement.
While the UK is not concerned with a cultural invasion, campaigners have growing fears over the toll of digital content.
Dr Lee said Labour’s stated emphasis on being a government of growth has seen them take a weak position in the face of tech companies. “They were actively courting these big tech companies,” she told The National. “Add to that a very aggressive US political climate that doesn't simplify this matter at all, and a Labour government that also hasn't been able to make big decisions.
“Parents, health professionals, teachers, everyone has been calling for strict social media restrictions on children. So what does the government do? They have a consultation instead.”
Fitful regulation
Though the harm of social media use has been universally noted, the debate across the world centres over how to police it. US first lady Melania Trump was joined by her French counterpart Brigitte Macron and more than 40 other spouses in March for a digital safeguarding summit. Later this month, a UN meeting in Vienna will promote international action on deepfakes and other abuse, some of which amounts to transnational exploitation of children.
The UK’s Online Safety Act puts companies at risk of fines if they do not ensure that harmful or pornographic content is not fed to children, but critics say it does not pressure companies sufficiently to remove such content from its platforms before it can be accessed.
Proponents of age restrictions say the measure is needed to support parents who are struggling to monitor their children's social media consumption due to peer pressure. They also hope it would force social media companies to address the addictive nature of their platforms, which is at the heart of their business models.
Critics say that age verification would remove online anonymity. It could also have the adverse effects of forcing children on to VPNs, and of giving social media companies less incentive to remove harmful content from their platforms.
