Smoking-style warnings on social media backed by seven out of ten adults, LBC poll finds

10 March 2025, 07:01

Online Safety Day is today, Monday 10th March from 7am to midnight on LBC, available across the UK on Global Player on your smart speaker, iOS or Android device; on DAB digital radio and TV, at LBC.co.uk and in London on 97.3 FM.

By Connor Hand

@Connor_HandLBC

Seven in ten Brits would support the introduction of cigarette packet-style warnings on social media platforms, an LBC poll has found.

Brits overwhelmingly backed forcing social media companies to display messages warning people of the potential mental health impacts of their sites and where they can receive support, in the exclusive poll carried out by More in Common for LBC.

Dame Melanie Dawes, chief executive of the social media regulator Ofcom, hinted the organisation would be open to introducing such warnings, describing it as a “really interesting idea”, in an LBC interview.

LBC, along with its sister stations at Global, embarks upon a day of coverage today dedicated to the issue of online safety.

Concerns about the correlation of negative mental health outcomes with social media use have been voiced by some of the world’s most senior doctors.

Last year, the United States’ then most senior public health official, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, argued for warnings on sites like X, TikTok and Facebook, given their association with “significant mental health harms for adolescents".

Dr Murthy said these labels would “regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved [as] safe”, citing research that indicates teenagers who spend more than three hours per day on social media are twice as likely to display depressive symptoms.

Over 83% of parents of children under 16 polled by LBC said they were worried about the impact these sites are having on their kids. Meanwhile, over half of those surveyed stated their belief that social media addiction should be considered as serious or worse than alcohol or drug addiction.

Next week, a host of new powers will be made available to the social media regulator, Ofcom, to protect children online as part of the Online Safety Act.

Companies that fail to comply face fines of up to 10% of global turnover, as well as the threat of jail time for senior executives who do not ensure the safety of youngsters.

The government is under pressure to go further in its efforts to protect children from online harms such as sexual abuse, material depicting suicide and self-harm and other age-inappropriate material like serious violence.

The polling of over 2,000 people also found that almost three-quarters of people in Britain back the idea of raising the minimum age of social media use to 16 years old.

Such a change would mirror action already taken in Australia.

In November, the Australian Parliament passed the strictest laws on social media use anywhere in the world, adopting age verification technology to prevent kids under 16 from accessing sites like Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok and Snapchat.

Critics have questioned how effective the legislation will prove. Some worry that it could have the unintended consequence of pushing children into less regulated sections of the internet.

Others have pointed to youngsters exploiting work-arounds, such as using a VPN, which allow users to mask their location and give the impression they are in another country.

Speaking to Nick Ferrari at Breakfast, Ofcom’s CEO Dame Melanie Dawes acknowledged the need for the regulator to take stronger action on social media companies who put children in harm’s way, particularly when it comes to protecting them from predatory adults.

“Above all, I want the platforms to make the service safer,” Dame Melanie said. “At the moment, adults can identify children very, very easily. There are no safeguards, no guardrails on that. So we are saying as a requirement, that any under 18 - not under 16 - must have their accounts set to private so they can't be contacted by strangers.”

On the prospect of cigarette packet-style warnings, Dame Melanie indicated it’s something Ofcom could introduce. “I think it's a really interesting idea. I certainly think that.”

Expanding on this, Dame Melanie added: “What we don't want to do is what some of the platforms would say: as long as there are parental controls, then everything's fine. And I would say, no, you're not actually following your own responsibilities there.”

Campaigners in the UK, meanwhile, have argued that existing legislation does not go far enough.

In January, Ian Russell, whose daughter, Molly, took her own life aged just 14 after viewing images of self-harm and suicide online, wrote to the prime minister express his concern that the UK is “going backwards” on online safety.

Mr Russell, who established the Molly Russell Foundation in his daughter’s honour, has become one of the prominent campaigners on online safety. He believes that the Online Safety Act must be made more robust.

Reacting to LBC’s poll, a spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said: “We are committed to keeping young people safe online. From summer robust new laws in force through the Online Safety Act will protect children from harmful content and ensure they have age-appropriate experiences online. These protections will act as the foundation and our priority is getting them in place quickly and effectively.”