Prime Minister Keir Starmer visited Putney to announce major new steps to keep children safe online, highlighting the Government’s determination to take stronger action against harmful content and hold tech companies to account.
During the visit, the Prime Minister joined Putney MP Fleur Anderson at St Mary’s Church, alongside the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Liz Kendall, and the Minister for Schools, Georgia Gould, where they met local families and young people to discuss the changes and hear directly about their experiences online.
The Prime Minister set out plans to take further powers to crack down on harmful and illegal online content, including measures to restrict harmful platform features, strengthen protections for children, and ensure faster action following the Government’s consultation on children’s wellbeing online. The Government is also moving to act more quickly by enabling measures to be implemented through secondary legislation, allowing Parliament to vote on changes within months rather than years.
The proposals include considering a minimum age limit for social media, restrictions on harmful features such as stranger pairing and live streaming, and new measures to prevent children from being able to send or receive nude images, with content blocked rather than blurred.
The visit reflected Fleur Anderson’s long-running campaign to make the online world safer for children and families in Putney. In Parliament, she has highlighted the scale of harmful content online and the need for Government to put children’s wellbeing ahead of engagement and profit.
Following the visit, the Government has also announced further action to tackle non-consensual intimate images through amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill. The new rules will require tech companies to remove abusive intimate images within 48 hours of being flagged, with significant penalties for non-compliance, including fines of up to 10% of global revenue or being blocked in the UK.
Platforms will also be required to proactively detect and remove this material, with victims only needing to report an image once for it to be removed across multiple platforms and blocked from being re-uploaded. Ofcom is considering measures to digitally mark images so they can be automatically detected and removed wherever they reappear.
Fleur Anderson said the Prime Minister’s visit showed the Government is listening to families and taking decisive action to tackle online harms.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said:
“As a dad of two teenagers, I know the challenges and the worries that parents face making sure their kids are safe online.
“Technology is moving really fast, and the law has got to keep up. With my government, Britain will be a leader not a follower when it comes to online safety.
“The action we took on Grok sent a clear message that no platform gets a free pass.
“We are closing loopholes that put children at risk, and laying the groundwork for further action. “We are acting to protect children’s wellbeing and help parents to navigate the minefield of social media.”
Fleur Anderson MP said:
“Parents and young people in Putney have been clear that the online world needs to be safer, with more than 1,000 writing directly to me with their concerns. I’m pleased the Prime Minister came here to hear from local families and to set out real action to protect children from harmful content and hold tech companies to account.
The further measures on non-consensual intimate images are an important step to ensure victims get swift justice and companies take responsibility for keeping people safe online.”
Fleur said she will continue working with Ministers, regulators, schools and local families to ensure the new protections are delivered quickly and effectively.
