Committee publication · Correspondence · 15 May 2026

Correspondence from Chair to Secretary of State for Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Minister for AI and Online Safety, re: Online safety consultation, 29 April

From: Science, Innovation and Technology Committee

Summary

The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee Chair writes to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology and Minister for AI and Online Safety on 29 April 2026 following the committee's March evidence session on restricting under-16s' access to social media. The committee concludes there is strong evidence of individual harms, the status quo is unacceptable, and calls for government to revisit previous recommendations on harmful algorithms and regulation, including new legislation treating social media companies as content curators rather than neutral platforms.

Key findings

Strong, consistent evidence of individual harms from social media use including mental health impacts, cyberbullying, exploitation, and exposure to illegal or age-inappropriate content; population-level harm evidence is less clear but higher use is predictive of poorer mental health outcomes.
Current regulatory status quo where social media companies are neither accountable nor responsible for preventing harms is unacceptable; the onus must shift from individuals and parents to companies to meet government-set consumer safety standards.
Government accepted almost all conclusions from the July 2025 report on social media, misinformation and harmful algorithms but almost none of its recommendations; committee urges government to revisit these and introduce new legislation.
Committee recommends: enforcement of existing age restrictions and digital age of consent (currently 13); services safe by design with addictive features removed; broader definitions of regulated services based on functionality; greater algorithm transparency; strong filtering requirements for illegal and harmful legal content; and mandatory data provision from tech companies.
Gaps in the Online Safety Act must be filled, particularly regarding AI chatbots using closed databases, and lack of company transparency on data should not delay action on already-known harms.

Tone

Critical

Topics

online-safetychild-protectionsocial-media-regulationalgorithm-transparencydigital-governance

Key actors

Dame Chi Onwurah MP, Liz Kendall MP, Kanishka Narayan MP, Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, Meta, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology

Notable line

“The status quo – where social media companies are neither accountable nor responsible for preventing harms – is not acceptable.”

Key Quotes

“There is strong evidence of individual harms and further protections are needed.”
— Dame Chi Onwurah MP · summarising committee conclusions

“The status quo – where social media companies are neither accountable for these harms nor responsible for preventing them while they work to grow their user base among the young – is not acceptable.”
— Dame Chi Onwurah MP · explaining why action is required

“The onus must not fall on young people or parents to act to prevent social media-related harm.”
— Dame Chi Onwurah MP · shifting responsibility to companies

“The government accepted almost all the conclusions in our July 2025 Report on 'Social media, misinformation and harmful algorithms' …”
— Dame Chi Onwurah MP · criticising government's response to previous committee work

“Meta told us that their algorithm can manipulate engagement with content, reducing engagement by down- ranking content by up to 80-90%.”
— Dame Chi Onwurah MP · illustrating algorithmic control and curation

“While access to this data is necessary, its absence should not delay swift action needed to address the problems we already know about.”
— Dame Chi Onwurah MP · on data transparency and urgent regulatory action

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Source · parliament.uk record ↗