UK may add Vinted and eBay to its under-16 social media ban

The UK government is considering adding Vinted and eBay to its ban on social media for under-16s, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said on Sunday. The ban is due to start next spring.Nandy said on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that the government was “looking seriously” at the move to keep children safe, the BBC reported.

Her comments followed a report in the Sunday Times that the ban would be widened to include the two resale sites. The paper said the concern was that messaging tools let strangers groom children. It said Depop and Facebook Marketplace could also be added.

However, the change would go further than the original plan. When the government announced the ban in June, it said it did not intend to include e-commerce platforms.

Both eBay and Vinted already say users must be at least 18, according to the BBC. eBay told the BBC that the details of the proposal were not yet clear, and that it would keep working with the government. Vinted did not respond to the BBC.

The ban will cover sites whose main purpose is social interaction and that let users post content. Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and YouTube are among them. The government has not yet published a full list.

Meanwhile, Ofcom set out last month four ways to check users’ ages, including photo ID and facial age estimation. A similar ban took effect in Australia last year, where many children have got around it.

Story by Alina Maria Stan

Alina Maria Stan builds connections that people actually feel. As co-founder and COO of Tekpon, she turns product intuition into real moment (show all) Alina Maria Stan builds connections that people actually feel. As co-founder and COO of Tekpon, she turns product intuition into real moments of discovery, shaping how teams find and adopt SaaS every day. Since 2020, she has led Tekpon’s brand voice, media strategy, and growth plays with a clear focus on human outcomes behind every metric. Before Tekpon, Alina followed curiosity across industries and countries. She was CEO of King Casino Bonus and led affiliate and brand strategy at Extremoo Media and Fable Media in Denmark, where she learned how to build partnerships that last. Early on, she sharpened her CRM and pricing instincts at K.H. ApS, always asking why customers choose what they choose. Her approach is rooted in more than a decade of international experience and two master’s degrees, one in Sustainable Consumption from the Technical University of Munich and one in Consumer Affairs Management from Aarhus University.