Rejected petition Raise the minimum age for social media accounts to 16 In the UK

Introduce a law to raise the minimum age for social media accounts to 16. Require platforms to use robust age verification to enforce this and protect young people’s mental health, wellbeing, and safety online.

More details

Social media is linked to rising rates of anxiety, depression, poor sleep, and harmful content exposure in children. Under-16s are especially vulnerable. Other countries, including Australia, are introducing stricter laws to protect children online. The UK must act now to prioritise child safety over corporate profit.

This petition was rejected

Why was this petition rejected?

There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.

You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.

You may wish to sign the following petition, which calls for similar action:

Ban social media for under-16s to protect children
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/710283

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.

Date submitted 1 October 2025
Get petition data (json format)

About petition data

The data shows the number of people who have signed the petition by country as well as in the constituency of each Member of Parliament. This data is available for all petitions on the site. It is not a list of people who have signed the petition. The only name that is shared on the site is that of the petition creator.