One in five children aged 3–5 already owns a smartphone and 95% of 13–15 year-olds have a social media profile. Is the UK's Online Safety Act failing to protect them and is a blanket ban on social media the answer?
In this episode of Policy Fix, host Joe Owen sits down with Tony Curzon Price, economist and policy fellow at Nesta, and Hannah Perry, Director at Demos, to untangle one of the most urgent policy debates of our time: how do we regulate social media for children without doing more harm than good?
They explore:
Why the Online Safety Act has 'barely touched the sides' and what went wrong
The evidence base for social media harm, from Jonathan Haidt's correlations to natural experiments tracking Facebook's campus rollout
Why Australia's age-based ban may push kids toward riskier, less regulated spaces
The case for product regulation - treating social media like a dangerous car that should be made safer, rather than trying to ban driving
Tony's bold proposal: a BBC Club Kids social network, launched by 2028
Hannah's vision for community-rooted digital spaces and epistemic sovereignty
What the government consultation should actually deliver, including bringing AI chatbots inside the scope of the Online Safety Act
If you work in policy, edtech, child welfare, or digital regulation or if you're a parent trying to make sense of a system that feels broken this episode is essential listening. Note that this episode was recorded before the recent judgement against Meta and YouTube in the US.
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Episode Chapters
00:00 What’s coming up: "A full-time job for parents": the social media treadmill
01:09 Welcome to Policy Fix. Introducing Joe, Tony Curzon Price & Hannah Perry
02:01 Setting the scene: is this a moral panic, or something genuinely different?
03:43 The stats: 1 in 5 toddlers has a phone; 95% of teens on social media
04:03 Evidence of harm. Child deaths, compulsive scrolling & displaced real-world activity
05:01 The causality debate: what Jonathan Haidt's research actually shows
06:30 The Facebook campus study — a natural experiment pointing to causality
07:33 The willingness-to-pay study: users know they're trapped and want out
08:25 How did we get here? The attention-harvesting business model explained
10:13 The algorithm arms race. Sarah Wynn-Williams and the Facebook whistleblower revelations
11:26 From Father Coughlin to Facebook: what radio history tells us about regulating media
13:23 Why the Online Safety Act has barely touched the sides
15:35 Why has this crisis bubbled back up the agenda now?
17:43 Should we ban social media for children? Tony makes the case against
19:05 The upside of social media why a blanket ban risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater
21:16 Hannah on the ban: 50% of parents would evade it, and it breaks trust with kids
23:34 Are "cuter" regulatory solutions also doomed to fail?
23:50 Tony's alternative: a public service construction of a good platform
26:44 Hannah's vision. BBC charter renewal, epistemic sovereignty & community digital spaces
29:31 What should the BBC practically do in the upcoming charter renewal?
32:26 The wider policy toolkit: no silver bullet, but an array of solutions
34:45 Tony on family-level solutions, network monitoring without surveillance
37:53 Australia's ban evaluation: is it reducing family conflict?
38:22 The BBC's new role in media literacy and cultural norm shift
39:05 What to watch for after the consultation closes
39:27 Hannah's ask: include AI chatbots in the Online Safety Act
40:08 Tony's ask: the BBC must become the platform, not feed it
41:52 One thing for Keir Starmer. Tony on cyberspace experimentation
42:49 Hannah's closing call: strengthen the Online Safety Act with safety-by-design
43:14 Sign-off
