The Guardian view on regulating big tech: the UK’s new, tougher approach to child safety is overdue

T here is a long way to go before children under 16 in the UK are blocked from the main social media platforms – as Sir Keir Starmer announced on Monday that they will be. He proposed a date of next spring, although whether, and when, a ban comes in may be up to an eventual successor. But whatever happens next, a crunch moment has arrived sooner than expected. Until recently, it seemed highly unlikely that the government would seek to restrict the tech industry’s access to children in the way it is now doing. Eighteen months ago, ministers sided with Ofcom in a row over the implementation of the Online Safety Act. Groups including 5Rights argued that companies should be made accountable for harm reduction, as well as obliged to follow new rules. For a mixture of economic and political reasons, the government seemed determined to stay on the right side of big tech and Donald Trump. Its approach was timid. That has now changed. A 48-page statement from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology makes a broad case about children’s wellbeing that goes beyond warnings about inappropriate content. It points to the amount of time many children spend online instead of doing other things such as sleeping, as well as concerns about bullying, child sexual abuse, livestreams, inappropriate use of AI chatbots and messaging functions that enable “stranger communication”. Ian Russell. …