Ministers Urged to 'Detoxify' Addictive Social Media

A leading online safety campaigner has urged the government to "detoxify the dopamine loops" of addictive social media platforms as tech companies prepare to implement significant child protection measures.

- Dan Milmo

Beeban Kidron, a crossbench peer, asked the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, to use the Online Safety Act to bring forward new codes of conduct on disinformation and on tech features that can lead to children becoming addicted to online content. But she added: "So far we have been rebuffed."

She said it was not "nanny state" behaviour to prevent companies that invest billions in making their platforms addictive from targeting under-18s. "It is up to ministers to use their powers to detoxify those dopamine loops - they have the power - so why not to do so right now?"

"Dopamine-like" measures identified by 5Rights, a campaign group founded by Kidron, include displaying the number of times a user's post has been liked or shared, mobile phone notifications and showing content with expiry dates, such as Instagram's stories feature.

Kidron spoke to the Guardian before today's deadline for online platforms - including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X and Google - to introduce child safety measures, and for pornography sites to bring in stringent age checking.