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PM says 'no option is off the table'

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Government also consulting on better age checks

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Ministers will visit Australia, government says

(Adds PM Starmer's remarks in paragraphs 1-2 and 6-10)

By Muvija M and Sam Tabahriti

LONDON, Jan 20 (Reuters) - Britain will consider

tightening rules on children's use of social media with no

option "off the table," Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on

Tuesday, warning that they risked being ‌pulled into "a world of

endless scrolling, anxiety and comparison."

Starmer said his Labour government was prepared to take

"robust action", a day after it said it ​would examine whether

features such as infinite scrolling and the age at which

children can access platforms should ‍be restricted.

The government said it would examine evidence from around

the world on suggested ⁠proposals including looking at ⁠whether a

social media ban for children would be effective and how best to

make such a ban work if it were imposed.

Ministers will ‌visit Australia, which last month became the

first country to ban ​social media for children under 16, to

learn from their approach, it said on Monday.

'CHILDREN NEED SPACE TO GROW'

The government did not mention a particular age limit, but

said it ⁠was exploring a ban for children "under a certain ‍age"

and measures such ​as better age checks.

"As I have been clear, no option is off the table," Starmer

said on Substack.

He said technology had great potential to improve lives and

open opportunities for young people.

"But ‍being a child should not be about constant judgement

from strangers or the pressure to perform for likes. Children

need space to grow," he said. "For too many today, it means

being pulled into a world of endless scrolling, anxiety and

comparison."

Starmer said parents would be offered evidence-based advice

on how long children aged five to 16 should spend on phones,

tablets and computers, with separate guidance for under-fives to

be published in April.

Mobile phones "have no place ​in classrooms", ‍with education

regulator Ofsted set to check bans are properly enforced, he

said.

An explosion of online content generated by artificial

intelligence has exacerbated concerns, highlighted by a public

outcry over reports of Elon Musk's ​Grok AI chatbot generating

non-consensual sexual images, including of minors.

This has prompted closer scrutiny in Britain of how children

and teenagers use social media, with lawmakers and regulators

looking at safeguards for younger users against risks to their

development and mental health.

Britain has set out plans for a ban on AI nudification tools

and is working to stop children being able to take, share or

view nude images on their devices. It is considering removing or

limiting functionalities that could drive addictive or

compulsive use ​of social media, such as infinite scrolling.

Britain's Online Safety Act has increased the share of

children encountering age checks online to 47% from 30% and cut

visits to pornography sites by a third, the government says.

But "these laws were never meant to be the end point,"

Technology ‍Secretary Liz Kendall said.