The Under-16s Social Media Ban Debate
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 17 January 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we hear from Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly took her own life in 2017. An inquest found social media content contributed "more than minimally" to Molly’s death. Since then Ian has campaigned for greater safety online. So why is Ian opposed to a ban for under 16s?
Laura and Paddy in the Newscast studio to discuss the arguments for and against, and why there seems to be increasing support for the idea in British politics.
We also look at what’s happened in Australia, which introduced a ban last year. introduced a ban, Kemi Badenoch has come out to say that if she were in government the Conservative party would follow suit. Since then, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said “all options are on the table” when it comes to protecting young people online.
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The presenters were Laura Kuenssberg and Paddy O’Connell. It was made by Chris Flynn with Rufus Gray. The social producer was Sophie Millward. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The weekend series producer is Chris Flynn. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | Was your flabbergasted at the Robert Generic Day? |
| 0:09.0 | No, because if you'd said, give me a list of the most likely conservatives to defect a reform, |
| 0:15.9 | he would have probably been at the top of it, so no. |
| 0:18.0 | What about Marple Badenock? |
| 0:20.0 | Ah, well, I think she's developing more of a |
| 0:23.7 | ruthless streak. I think she displayed that. I think she made the best of a terrible hand, |
| 0:27.2 | which is somebody very prominent and affecting. I also just want to share with newscasters. |
| 0:31.5 | Adam and I had a fruitless search for good nicknames for Detective Bader knock. Newscasters, |
| 0:36.5 | I'm glad to say, have helped us out and come up with by far the best one, much better than Bader knock Holmes, ChemI-5. Oh, well that tells us that we're in the right job because we get all the content provided by the newscasters. On we go with Saturday's newscast. Newscast from the BBC. Fat boy sliver me in the classroom doing our violin lessons. I was the tappletail in the class. Can I have an apology, please? I trust almost nobody. That daddy has to sometimes do strong language. Next time in Moscow. I feel delulu with no solulu. Take me down to Downey Street. Let's go have a tour. Blimey. |
| 1:12.9 | It's Laura in the studio. It's Paddy in the studio. And in a few minutes, we're going to be |
| 1:17.0 | joined by an excellent guest on a topic which Kemai 5 made big headlines with last week. So when |
| 1:23.0 | she came to do her leaders interview with us last Sunday, Kemi Badov made headlines by suggesting that |
| 1:28.2 | the Conservatives would back and will argue for a ban on social media for under 16s. |
| 1:35.3 | This is something that you and I have been talking about this whole field for a long, long, long |
| 1:39.0 | time on this program, but all of a sudden the idea of banning social media for under 16s has become incredibly politically fashionable. |
| 1:47.0 | There's a vote coming up in the House of Lords this week. |
| 1:50.0 | And for a long time, the government has been very hesitant. |
| 1:53.0 | They weren't in that place. They weren't talking about a blanket ban. |
| 1:56.0 | Australia have gone ahead with it and the government have been saying for a while, |
| 1:59.0 | well, we'll study what's happening in Australia very, very carefully, but it does seem that the political |
| 2:04.0 | wind has changed on this from really quite strong resistance to really quite a fair breeze |
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