The Government expects Meta’s new protections for teenagers in the US to also apply to the UK, Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden has said.
Mr McFadden said he did not want young people in America to have “a higher rate of protection” than young people in Britain.
However, he added that the UK Government is also going further and will implement a social media ban for young people next year.
Facebook and Instagram’s owner has agreed to pay up to 18 billion US dollars (£13.3 billion) as part of a settlement ending a legal battle in the US, where it will also introduce major new protections for teenage users.
The agreement resolves claims filed by 47 US states accusing the tech giant of designing Instagram with features that are addictive to children and teenagers and can harm their mental health.
Asked on Sky News whether he would expect Meta to roll out new safety features in the UK as well, Mr McFadden said: “Yeah, we would.
“I mean, we don’t want a situation where young people in America have got a higher rate of protection than young people in the UK.
“But we’re not just leaving it to Meta. We’re taking action ourselves.
“The previous prime minister Keir Starmer announced a ban on social media for young people to come into force next year.
“We’re also having night time curfews. We’ve got to do something about this endless scrolling, which is so addictive for young people.”
He added: “There’s a great side to this technology. I know it’s opened up a world of knowledge that didn’t exist when I was growing up, but we also need to operate in a way that understands how addictive it is, and make sure that children and young people can have a real childhood in the real physical world.
“It’s better for their mental health and better for all of us in the future.”
Mr McFadden later told BBC Breakfast that the UK has had a “more robust attitude for some time compared to authorities elsewhere in the world” with its Online Safety Act 2023.
Dr Felipe Romero-Morena, associate professor in law at the University of Hertfordshire, said: “This settlement represents a watershed moment in platform liability, but the real test lies in the technical and cross-border enforcement of these safeguards.”
He added: “While this settlement legally binds Meta only within the United States, global regulatory spillover is inevitable.
“Regulators across Europe and the UK are already compelling major platforms toward proactive duties of care and ‘safety by default’.”
However, he added that age verification remains a “core operational hurdle”, as teenagers routinely bypass network-level blocks using virtual private networks (VPNs), and automated biometric estimation systems remain vulnerable to presentation attacks and AI spoofing.
