The UK government plans to introduce a default overnight social media curfew for 16- and 17-year-olds, with apps such as Instagram, TikTok and YouTube set to be unavailable between midnight and 6 a.m. unless teenagers change their account settings.
The proposal is part of a wider push to reduce online harm and limit addictive platform design. Ministers also want features such as auto-play and infinite scroll to be switched off by default, arguing that the changes could improve teenagers’ sleep, focus and family life.
The curfew would not be an outright ban. Older teenagers would be able to opt out by changing their settings, a feature that has already drawn criticism from campaigners who say the measure is too weak.
Ellen Roome, whose 14-year-old son Jools Sweeney died in 2022 in what she believes was an online challenge gone wrong, said the proposal does not go far enough because teenagers can simply switch the restrictions off. “It’s not good enough really just to have a product you can switch off,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
The plan follows the government’s June announcement that under-16s in the UK would be banned from a range of social media platforms. The new proposal would extend protections to older teenagers, while stopping short of a full ban for 16- and 17-year-olds.
