Hello,
Last month I wrote to you about the steps we are taking to give children the space to grow up without the online world getting in the way.
As a parent of two teenage children myself, I know that children’s access to social media is something that is front and centre of a lot of parents’ minds right now.
We all say we will do anything to protect our children - and I think it’s right that the government supports parents through this.
Of course, this isn’t a new challenge. The dangers of children being groomed, or encouraged to harm themselves, bullying and misogyny - we have been talking about this for years now. What have the social media companies done with that? Where is the great push from them to get their house in order?
At the time of writing the last Substack on this topic, we had just moved quickly to make sure X fixed their AI bot Grok so it could no longer make non-consensual images. It was clear then that government intervention is needed to hold social media companies to account and keep young women safe.
Now, I want you to be the first to know about the steps we are taking next.
First, we are tightening up our existing online safety laws to ensure AI chatbots providers are firmly in scope. It’s vitally important that our rules keep up with the rapid pace of technological change. This will build on recent steps we’ve taken to ban nudification apps and criminalise the creation of intimate images without consent.
We will be going to Parliament for new government powers, enabling us to act on the findings of the social media consultation where the evidence suggests we need to. This could include:
Setting a minimum age limit for social media: unlike the Tories, who took years to pass the Online Safety Act, we will take powers that would allow us to implement a minimum age for social media in a matter of months to prevent kids from accessing harmful social media.
Restricting specific functionalities: that are detrimental to kids’ wellbeing and keep them hooked to their screens like endless scroll or autoplay
Limiting VPN access for kids:
This is all designed to put the wellbeing of children first.
That’s what we want to do. Now let me tell you why.
I have lived a life touched by opportunity.
I was the first person in my family to go to university. I grew up in a normal, working-class household. You all know what my dad did for work...
But no matter my success, no matter the things I achieved, I have never forgotten where I came from, and who I belong to. In part, because my dad wouldn’t let me.
My dad made a point of reminding me that my success, in my career, and in my personal life, was just as important the achievements my brother was making. Because while I was at university, my brother was fighting another battle.
My brother had learning difficulties. For him, success wasn’t defined the way that it was for so many of us. He was fighting a battle every day just to be seen. To count. To be recognised for the contribution that I know he could have made.
My brother was the first in our family to fight that battle. That is just as important as me going to university.
I knew it. My dad made sure of it. But it is rarely the story that gets told.
It’s what we do as a country – isn’t it?
We elevate the stories of the working class few who do break through the class ceiling. And I don’t blame anyone for that. I’m guilty of it. It gives people hope. It’s important to tell those stories.
But when we talk about opportunity, and the changes we want to make to this country, we have to ask ourselves how we will unlock that opportunity for every child.
And that is something that will matter, deeply, for every parent.
Can we honestly say our children are currently getting the opportunities they deserve when social media is damaging their attention spans, chipping away their confidence, social skills and mental health?
Being a parent is a tough gig right now.
When Facebook first launched in 2004, it was a pretty simple concept. Make a profile, post updates that people could look at in the order they were posted, like and comment on what your friends had to say.
That is a world away from the algorithms, endless scrolling, For You pages and private chats that make up the modern world of social media. In the past 20+ years, social media has evolved to become something completely different from the simple, stripped-back pages it was in its conception.
And in that evolution, it has become something that is quietly harming our children. A harm that, due to the inaction of previous Tory governments, we are allowing to happen.
Young people’s sense of self depends on this algorithm, and it is slowly but surely eroding the opportunities that I spoke about earlier.
If we are serious about making sure every child has the opportunity to succeed, then we need to put the building blocks in place.
So today, I want to make a promise to parents:
I will take the time needed to get this right. I will ensure that the actions we take are the right ones. But once that decision has been made, I will waste no time in getting on with it.
We will bring new powers that will give us the ability to crack down on the addictive elements of social media, stop the auto-play, the never-ending scrolling, that keeps are children hooked on their screens for hours, and stop kids getting around age limits.
And if that means a fight with the big social media companies, then bring it on.
We can make a difference on this. Politics can be a force for good. We can protect our children, and we can protect their childhood.
Keir Starmer.