The UK government is urging Meta to implement safety measures for children in Britain that align with protections established in a recent US legal settlement, which could potentially cost the tech giant up to $18 billion. This US agreement requires Meta to enforce default safeguards for users under 18 years old, including a two-hour daily screen time limit that can be extended only with parental consent. Additional measures demand restrictions on overnight use and constraints on notifications during nighttime and school hours.
British officials emphasize that children and teenagers in the UK should not receive inferior safety standards compared to their American counterparts. In response, the UK government is formulating new regulations to control social media access for minors. These plans include prohibiting children under 16 from accessing certain platforms and imposing overnight curfews on teenage users.
The US settlement has intensified the call for stricter regulatory oversight of social media companies and increased scrutiny of features that promote excessive usage. This development has sparked a wider conversation about the need for comprehensive regulation to protect young users online.
Despite these efforts, some experts express skepticism about the effectiveness of time limits and curfews in addressing deeper issues related to social media usage. They argue that engagement-driven features like infinite scrolling, autoplay functions, and algorithmic recommendations, which are designed to captivate users, may not be sufficiently addressed by simply imposing use restrictions.