Overview
- The House of Lords approved by 261–150 an amendment to a child welfare and schools bill to bar under-16s from social media, sending the issue to the House of Commons.
- The government says it will oppose the amendment in the Commons and has launched a three-month consultation, with a formal response expected by summer.
- Ministers will visit Australia to study its new regime that requires platforms to block under-16 access and remove existing accounts or face large fines.
- TikTok has started deploying an AI-based age-detection system in Europe to identify under-13 accounts for human moderator review, with appeals via ID, credit card or a selfie.
- Meta recently removed about 544,052 suspected underage accounts in Australia as platforms adapt to tougher child-safety requirements.