Starmer tells social media companies ‘things will change’ on addictive features

Sir Keir Starmer signalled his Government was preparing to take action to curb functions that keep young people hooked on social media.

That could see an end to features such as infinite scrolling or "streaks" that reward daily use of an app.

Arguing such features "shouldn't be permitted", Sir Keir said: "This is the platforms trying to get children to stay on for longer, to get addicted. I can't see that there's a case for that, and therefore I can see we're going to have to act."

The Government has faced calls to ban social media use for under-16s outright, and is currently consulting on such a proposal along with other restrictions.

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The Prime Minister said he was "open-minded" about a ban, but was clear that things would change.

He told the Sunday Mirror: "We'll go through the consultation, but I think I'll be absolutely clear things will not stay as they are.

"This is going to change. I don't think the next generation would forgive us if we didn't act now."

His comments come days after a landmark court case in the United States that saw a jury find Meta and Google liable for a woman's childhood social media addiction.

In a potentially precedent-setting decision, the jury in California recommended the 20-year-old plaintiff be awarded six million dollars (£4.4 million) in damages.

Both Meta and Google plan to appeal, but the Prime Minister said the decision could mark "a turning point" leading to "much stricter content restriction".

A Government source said: "Nothing is off the table when it comes to protecting children online.

"We've shown we are prepared to take action. The PM stood up for the vulnerable against Grok and won that battle.

"We've got further to go, but we won't let parents face this battle alone, we are on their side."

Sir Keir himself delivered a similar message on a visit to a school in south-east London on Friday, telling parents he was ready for a battle with tech companies over children's screen time and social media use.

He told parents: "They want more children to spend more time online and we've got to fight them and be clear whose side we're on here."

The Prime Minister's warning comes after former minister Josh Simons said politicians should not be let "off the hook" for improving regulation of social media.

Mr Simons, who used to work on Meta's AI ethics team, said the US ruling should "terrify" tech chiefs.

He added: "I think it was so obvious to me that when you build a set of AI systems to maximise things like clicks and likes and shares and angry faces, that what you're doing is designing AI to addict people".

The former minister, who spent three years working for Meta and testified in the case, told the BBC he had quit the company because his team's recommendations were not being followed.

"Every time a decision was made, it seemed like the opposite of what they would need to do to think about these addictive harms".

He said the only real conclusion was that "they weren't serious," and that "revenue was more important than taking responsibility for those harms".