Terror laws watchdog: under-16s should be off social media

Under-16s should be banned from social media as platforms either cannot or will not regulate content well enough and the UK lacks the manpower to force them to do so, the reviewer of terrorism laws has said.

Jonathan Hall KC told the Press Association that the online world should be at the front and centre of all national security decisions, as children spend hours every day online.

Lonely and isolated children can find “a huge sense of meaning” by connecting with others in a digital world but are more at risk of being drawn into extremism, he said.

Mr Hall’s comments came as international study by the Global Terrorism Index found that multiplayer games, and social media apps used by gamers, are being exploited by predators who want to radicalise young people.

Steve Killelea, head of think-tank the Institute for Economics and Peace, which publishes the Index, said: “One of the most alarming developments in youth radicalisation is the weaponisation of online gaming and gaming-adjacent communication platforms, including Discord, Twitch, Steam, and Roblox.

“Multiplayer gaming environments provide ideal digital infrastructure for isolation, alternative community building, and the normalisation of violence.

“Recruiters leveraged popular multiplayer games, including Minecraft, Fortnite, and Call of Duty, to establish social bonds with isolated adolescents under the guise of shared recreational interests.

“This gamification extended to the creation of bespoke extremist modifications and custom servers where users actively role-played violent fantasies.

“Minors have been documented using simulation games to digitally rehearse real-world violence, such as simulated attacks on mosques, synagogues, or schools, blurring the cognitive boundary between digital recreation and physical terrorism.

“The gamification of extremism has also extended to the creation of ‘scoreboards’ and competitive dynamics within extremist communities.

“Online forums tracked and celebrated the ‘kill counts’ of mass attackers, creating perverse incentive structures that encouraged escalation.

“For adolescents already immersed in competitive gaming cultures, these dynamics exploited familiar psychological reward mechanisms: achievement, ranking, and peer recognition, to normalise and incentivise real-world violence.”

Mr Hall said he wants policy and law enforcement officials to have more contact with young extremists to understand what pulls them “down the rabbit hole”.

“If you look at the Ofcom surveys about how long children spend online, they’re spending six, seven, eight hours a day online.

“We know that there is a particular profile of person at the moment who is getting pulled into radicalisation.

“They’re often friendless, with a high instance of autism, very unhappy, lonely individuals who then find a huge sense of meaning online.

“We need to get out of the habit of thinking about the online world as an extra. It needs to be front and centre of everything, of all national security decisions.

“I would like to see a lot more contact between policy officials and the children who are most at risk of being drawn in.

“Not everyone who sees this stuff online is going to be attracted by it, but there are a number of people who, if you say, look at this person, he’s killed 52 people in a massacre in New Zealand, they’ll go: ‘Great. I’d like to do that.’

“We need to know more about those people and their experiences and what might stop them going down the rabbit hole. We don’t really talk to them.”

Trying to moderate online content is too massive a task, the terror laws watchdog said, meaning a social media ban for under-16s should be introduced.

Earlier this month, a ban was rejected by the House of Commons, however, MPs backed plans to give the secretary of state more powers, meaning that in future Science Secretary Liz Kendall could “restrict or ban children of certain ages from accessing social media services and chat bots”.

Mr Hall said: “My own personal view is that under-16s should be off social media. The alternative is to try and regulate content, and that is so difficult, it’s so imperfect, trying to regulate content.

“The job is just too massive. If you rely upon platforms, they either won’t do it or they won’t be able to do it well enough, because the volume of content is so high.

“If you rely upon Ofcom, they’ve only got 50 people in their enforcement team. That’s a tiny number of people to take action against recalcitrants. And then you’ve got all sorts of platforms based overseas who don’t necessarily care at all.

“Content moderation is just not going to deal with this, and the risks are so high, and the benefits are so dubious, of children watching what they call brain rot.”

An Ofcom spokesperson said: “The Government is leading an important debate on this, which we’ll be supporting with our independent expert advice and insights from our research.

“In the meantime, we’re getting on with the job we’ve been given by Parliament – to implement and enforce the Online Safety Act – and change is happening.”

There have been concerns about the proportion of suspects arrested for terrorism offences in England and Wales who are under the age of 18.

In 2025, 39 out of 255 suspects arrested were aged under 18, and in 2024 40 out of 250.

The Global Terrorism Index, due to be published on Thursday, found that in 2025, minors accounted for 42 percent of terror-related investigations in Europe and North America, a three-fold increase since 2021.