British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced on Sunday evening that he will go to Parliament to expand the government's powers and impose restrictions on the use of social networks, such as an age limit. "We will go to Parliament to get new powers for the government" that will allow "to implement a minimum age for social networks within months to prevent children from accessing harmful content," Starmer explained in a post. In addition to the age limit, the Prime Minister proposes to restrict specific functions of applications that are "harmful to the well-being of children and keep them hooked to their screens," such as autoplay. He also said he will seek to limit children's access to VPNs to prevent them from bypassing the restrictions. "As the father of two teenagers, I know that minors' access to social media is something that is very much on the minds of parents right now," Starmer justified. This announcement adds to the various initiatives proliferating in Europe to regulate the use of social media by minors since Australia became the first country in the world to ban them for those under 16. Spain recently announced a similar proposal, and France, Denmark, and Greece, among others, have taken steps in this direction. Both the Conservative Party and some factions of the Labour Party, to which Starmer belongs, had previously expressed their support for this type of social media restrictions for minors.
