Press Release - Independent Research on Social Media Age Restrictions Needed as UK Announces Ban for Under-16s

June 15, 2026 - Zürich, Switzerland - As the United Kingdom announces age-based restrictions on social media for children under 16, the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) calls for government to support independent scientific evaluation of the impact of the new regulations on child safety online.

The IPIE's Scientific Panel on Child Protection and Social Media published Disrupting Digital Exploitation: Recommendations for Preventing and Responding to Technology-Facilitated Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in March 2026. The assessment reviewed more than 100 studies on technical, legal, policing, behavioral, and educational interventions against technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse (TF-CSEA) and is the most comprehensive synthesis of evidence of this topic to date.

What the Scientific Evidence Says

The IPIE's assessment of more than a decade of research identifies four key findings:

• Most interventions focus on detecting abuse after it occurs. Far fewer targets the systems that enable exploitation in the first place, including payment mechanisms, advertising pathways, and recruitment channels used by absuers.
• Technical tools can support child safety at scale, but only under the right conditions. Automated and AI-assisted detection systems require legal authority, secure data access, and effective enforcement to be effective.
• Behavioral and educational interventions build awareness and reduce risk, but evidence of sustained impact is limited. Long-term funding for longitudinal studies is needed to understand what keeps children safer online.
• Financial systems are the most underused lever for protecting children online. Few interventions disrupt the payments that finance abuse; most focus on tracing transactions only after harm has occurred.

Taken together, the findings point to a clear scientific consensus: keeping children safer online requires coordinated legal authority, scalable technical tools, sustained enforcement, and action to interrupt financial flows.

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Professor Phil Howard, President of the IPIE, said:

Independent scientific evidence on the effectiveness of age-based social media restrictions is currently limited. In implementing new restrictions, the government should support independent, rigorous evaluation of their impact and be prepared to adapt if the evidence calls for it.

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Dr. Selcan Kaynak, member of the IPIE's Scientific Panel on Children Protection and Social Media, said:

Our review of over 100 studies found that the strongest interventions for child safety online are those that address the systems and conditions that enable exploitation, technical tools based by the legal authority to act, disruption of the financial flows that fund abuse, and sustained enforcement. The scientific evidence based on the specific effects of age-based access restrictions remains underdeveloped. Independent, longitudinal research evaluating the real-world impact of such policies on child safety will be critical to informing what comes next.

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Ollie Buckley, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the IPIE, said:

As the UK Government takes additional steps to protect children online, we encourage policymakers to support and draw on the best available science. Government should seize this opportunity to ensure that the impact of age-based restrictions, alongside other interventions to safeguard children, can be independently evaluated through access to relevant data held by online platforms; and be willing to adapt policies in light of evidence.

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ENDS

More about the International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE):

• Read the full Summary for Policymakers, Disrupting Digital Exploitation (SFP2026.1)
• The IPIE's Scientific Panel on Children Protection and Social Media
• Latest news and announcements
• Most recent scientific research outputs from the IPIE

Further details about the IPIE can be found on its website, www.IPIE.info

For media inquiries, interviews, or more information, please contact: Press@IPIE.info

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About the IPIE

The International Panel on the Information Environment (IPIE) is an independent and global science organization providing scientific knowledge about the health of the world's information environment. Based in Switzerland, the IPIE offers policymakers, industry, and civil society actionable scientific assessments about threats to the information environment. The IPIE is the only scientific body systematically organizing, evaluating, and elevating research with the broad aim of improving the global information environment. Hundreds of researchers worldwide contribute to the IPIE's reports.