{"id":7943,"date":"2026-03-10T11:31:28","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T11:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/?p=7943"},"modified":"2026-03-10T11:31:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T11:31:28","slug":"keir-starmer-promises-smartphone-crackdown-for-under-16s-within-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/2026\/03\/10\/keir-starmer-promises-smartphone-crackdown-for-under-16s-within-months\/","title":{"rendered":"Keir Starmer promises smartphone crackdown for under-16s within months"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to implement a significant crackdown on smartphone and social media use for children and teenagers within months to enhance online safety. Proposed reforms include setting minimum age limits for social media, restricting &#8220;infinite scrolling,&#8221; and preventing children from using VPNs to access adult content. The government is also closing legal loopholes to force AI chatbot providers to comply with the Online Safety Act, following a dispute with Elon Musk&#8217;s Grok. A formal consultation will launch in March, with ministers planning to introduce new powers through the Children\u2019s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to respond quickly to technological changes. .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Date:<\/strong> February 16, 2026. <strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/uk\/politics\/keir-starmer-phone-use-social-media-children-liz-kendall-b2920808.html\">independent.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to implement a significant crackdown on smartphone and social media use for children and teenagers within months to enhance online safety. Proposed reforms include setting minimum age limits for social media, restricting &#8220;infinite scrolling,&#8221; and preventing children from using VPNs to access adult content. The government is also closing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":7945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-unregulated-digitalization-of-political-arena"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7943"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8066,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7943\/revisions\/8066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}