Streeting likens social media to tobacco as pressure grows for under-16s ban

The Independent emphasizes on-the-ground reporting and separating facts from messaging across issues including reproductive rights, climate change, and Big Tech. It describes support for sending journalists to speak to both sides and notes reliance on donations rather than paywalls. The text then focuses on growing pressure on ministers to impose an under-16 social media ban ahead of an online safety consultation deadline. It references the Government’s Growing Up In The Online World consultation, which proposes measures such as an Australia-style ban, app curfews, and limits on addictive features. Former health secretary Wes Streeting compares social media to tobacco, calling it extremely addictive and harmful, and says Big Tech is using tobacco’s regulatory avoidance playbook.

"The Government's Growing Up In The Online World consultation, which floated measures such an Australia-style social media ban for under-16s, app curfews and limits on addictive features, closes at the end of Tuesday. In his first intervention on the issue since he quit Government earlier this month, former health secretary Mr Streeting said: Social media should be treated like tobacco it's extremely addictive, bad for our health, and Big Tech is borrowing the Big Tobacco playbook to avoid regulation."

"Meanwhile, a report by the Aca"

"We've got to give our children their childhood back. A ban for under-16s must be the start, not the end. We have given the pen to tech moguls to write our future for us. It's time to take the pen back."

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