Disability activists have said banning under-16s from social media risks cutting off a “lifeline for friendship” for disabled children and could push them into social isolation by preventing them from making connections online. Charities and high-profile figures in disability advocacy said they were concerned that a blanket ban on social media would disproportionately affect teenagers who may not be able to meet people easily in real life or find peers with similar conditions.
Lucy Edwards, a blind broadcaster, author and disability activist, said she was pleased to see the government taking online safety seriously, but she believed a social media ban would have serious unintended consequences. “I got 99.9% of my support via the internet as a young visually impaired girl,” she said.
“I was 11 and I didn’t know anyone in my real life who was blind, so naturally I took to social media. I would talk to friends on the other side of the planet – I can’t emphasise enough that no one I was friends with [in person] understood my vision loss like my friends online.” She said the ban would prevent teenagers from discovering voices and influencers who had similar sight impairments or disabilities and who would become positive role models.
“If you block young visually impaired people from social media, you are restricting them from finding the independence they might not know they can have,” she said. On Monday, Keir Starmer announced he would ban all major social media platforms for under-16s, including Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, as well as blocking livestreaming functions.
He said the policy was not “cost-free” and that social media had brought benefits to young people, but a “total ban is the right choice”. Dr Shani Dhanda, a broadcaster, author and accessibility consultant who has brittle bone disease, said social media platforms were a “lifeline for friendship, support and connection” for many young disabled people.