Midnight to 6am: the voluntary social media curfew for older teens

A month after announcing the under-16 ban, the government has turned to the age group just above it. Under plans set out on 15 July, 16- and 17-year-olds will find social media apps locked between midnight and 6am by default, with autoplaying video and personalised feeds also switched off as standard on platforms including Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

The key word is default. Unlike the under-16 ban, none of this is compulsory. Older teens can go into settings and turn everything back on. Online safety minister Kanishka Narayan's argument for the soft approach: in pilots and earlier voluntary trials, more than 90% of teenagers left the restrictive settings alone.

Critics have made the obvious point that a curfew you can disable isn't much of a curfew. The counter-argument is about friction rather than force. Most people, teenagers included, never change defaults. Which side is right will be measurable within months of the rollout, and the government has committed to trialling the approach before it becomes standard.

For families, the practical read: the settings arrive on the platforms' side, nothing is needed from you, and the under-16 ban timeline is unchanged (regulations before Christmas, enforcement from spring 2027). The ban hub has the full timeline.