Social media ban for under-16s ‘not the right approach’, says Google boss 

A landmark court case in the US last week saw Facebook owner Meta and Google found liable for a woman’s childhood social media addiction through deliberately designing addictive products. File picture

A ban on social media for under-16s is not the “right approach” and could push children towards more dangerous and unsupervised corners of the internet, Google’s UK boss has warned.

Kate Alessi, managing director and vice-president of Google UK and Ireland, said the tech giant, which owns YouTube, is not supportive of “blanket bans” amid growing calls for governments to stop children having access to social media.

A landmark court case in the US last week saw Facebook owner Meta and Google found liable for a woman’s childhood social media addiction through deliberately designing addictive products, and ordered to pay damages of $6m between them.

Ms Alessi said Google does not agree with the verdict and plans to appeal.

She said a social media ban is not the answer to children’s online wellbeing and cautioned if countries followed the lead of Australia, which introduced a world-first social media ban for under-16s in December, it could have unintended consequences.

Ms Alessi told PA: “We don’t believe that’s the right approach.

“We believe blanket bans take choices away from parents and push kids out of supervised spaces.” 

She said it was important that “appropriate guardrails” are in place, with YouTube recently introducing features to help prevent addictive behaviours in children and teenagers, such as timers for its Shorts format, as well as customised “Bedtime” and “Take a break” functions.

“We want to make sure our products are built to be as safe as possible,” Ms Alessi said.

In Ireland, the Government had been considering plans to ban social media for under-16s, following the example of Australia, but a digital strategy announced in February stopped short of a commitment in this regard, saying it would work with the EU on it instead.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said in February: “I think there is a need for stronger regulation in respect of protecting children and young people.

“We keep everything under review in terms of a ban, it’s happening in Australia, so we’ll see how that is manifesting itself.”

Indonesia, Spain, Denmark, and France are among the countries who have announced plans for a ban on social media use for teenagers