UK Social Media Rules Target Children, Not Tech Capital

Analysis of: New rules on social media could target ‘doomscrolling’ and ban for under-16s, Starmer says – UK politics live
The Guardian | February 16, 2026

TL;DR

UK state proposes regulating social media to 'protect children' while preserving tech monopolies' profit model intact. The framing individualizes a systemic crisis of platform capitalism onto parental anxiety and childhood vulnerability.

Analytical Focus:Contradictions Historical Context Class Analysis

The Starmer government's proposed social media regulations reveal the contradictions inherent in capitalist state attempts to manage the externalities of platform capitalism. While framing the intervention as protecting children from 'harmful content' and 'doomscrolling,' the policy proposals carefully avoid challenging the fundamental profit model that produces these harms: algorithmic engagement designed to maximize attention extraction for advertising revenue. The historical context is instructive. Starmer himself notes that Facebook launched in 2004 as a simple platform, evolving into an attention-harvesting machine. This evolution wasn't accidental but reflected capital's imperative to intensify exploitation of user attention as a commodity. The eight-year gestation of the Online Safety Act demonstrates how legislative processes lag far behind capital's capacity to reshape social relations. The government's solution—annual parliamentary debates to update internet safety laws—tacitly acknowledges that the state cannot keep pace with capital's creative destruction. The class dynamics are obscured by universalizing rhetoric about 'parents' and 'children.' Yet the material reality is that working-class families face intensified pressures: longer working hours, reduced childcare, and the economic necessity of screens as de facto childminders. The proposed consultation invites input from 'young people' while the actual policy will be shaped by tech lobbyists and industry-friendly voices like Ofcom. Meanwhile, the simultaneous announcement of increased defence spending to 3% of GDP reveals the state's true priorities: military expenditure faces no such consultative delays.

Class Dynamics

Actors: Tech platform owners (Meta, TikTok, X/Grok), State regulatory apparatus (Ofcom, government ministers), Working-class parents, Children and teenagers, NGO-charity sector (NSPCC), Conservative political opposition

Beneficiaries: Tech platforms (preserve core business model while appearing responsive), Political class (appear protective without structural change), Regulatory bureaucracy (expanded mandate and funding), Defence industry (simultaneous military spending increase)

Harmed Parties: Working-class children (subjected to surveillance and restriction without addressing root causes), Working-class parents (responsibilized for systemic failures), Young workers in gig economy dependent on platform access

The state mediates between tech capital's profit imperatives and social reproduction requirements. Tech platforms retain structural power—the government's response to Grok's 'digital undressing' feature was to negotiate, not regulate. The framing positions parents and children as passive consumers requiring protection, obscuring their potential as collective agents demanding platform democratization.

Material Conditions

Economic Factors: Attention economy monetization through advertising, Platform monopoly concentration, Labour market precarity driving screen-as-childcare, Surveillance capitalism's data extraction model

Social media platforms extract value through unpaid user labor (content creation, data generation) while users bear the costs of 'harm.' The proposed regulations address consumption (age limits, scroll restrictions) rather than production (algorithmic design for profit, advertising-driven engagement). The base—platform capitalism's need to maximize engagement for advertising revenue—remains untouched while the superstructure (law, regulation) is adjusted to manage resulting contradictions.

Resources at Stake: User attention as commodity, Children's developmental time, Advertising revenue streams, Data for AI training, Political legitimacy for governing party

Historical Context

Precedents: Victorian factory acts limiting child labour (regulated exploitation without abolishing it), Broadcast content regulation (watershed hours), Tobacco and alcohol advertising restrictions, GDPR data protection (compliance-based approach favouring large platforms)

This represents a characteristic pattern of neoliberal governance: the state intervenes to manage capitalism's most politically damaging contradictions while preserving capital accumulation. The shift from laissez-faire tech policy to regulation mirrors the historical transition from competitive to monopoly capitalism, where concentrated capital requires state management. Starmer's complaint about 'Tory inaction' obscures that Labour equally failed to anticipate these dynamics—both parties served the same class interests during platform capitalism's expansion phase.

Contradictions

Primary: The fundamental contradiction between social media's profit model (maximizing engagement through addictive design) and stated policy goal (protecting children from harmful engagement). Regulations that preserve the business model cannot resolve harms produced by that model.

Secondary: Democratic participation vs. information control (16-year-olds get votes but may lose news access via social media), Speed of legislative response vs. pace of technological change, Individual parental responsibility vs. structural corporate power, Protecting children online while expanding military spending offline

Under capitalist relations, this contradiction will likely resolve through a compromise that creates compliance theatre: age verification systems that platforms can implement profitably, content moderation that targets symptoms not causes, and VPN restrictions that primarily affect less technically sophisticated (working-class) families. The underlying attention economy model will adapt and continue. Genuine resolution would require platform democratization or public ownership—outcomes outside the current policy imagination.

Global Interconnections

The UK's regulatory approach mirrors global patterns of liberal democracies attempting to govern platform capitalism. Australia's under-16 ban, EU's Digital Services Act, and US Congressional hearings all represent variations of the same project: managing platform capitalism's legitimacy crisis without challenging its property relations. These national interventions occur as tech platforms operate transnationally, creating regulatory arbitrage opportunities. The simultaneous discussion of defence spending increases (to 3% GDP by 2029) connects to broader geopolitical competition, including the tech-military nexus. AI capabilities central to both social media algorithms and military applications reveal how the same technological base serves both attention extraction and imperial power projection. The state's urgency on defence contrasts sharply with its 'consultation' approach to child protection, revealing class priorities.

Conclusion

The social media regulation debate demonstrates how capitalist states manage contradictions through reform rather than transformation. For working-class families, meaningful change would require challenging platform monopolies through public ownership or democratic governance, not merely adjusting consumption parameters. The framing of this as a parental concern rather than a labour issue—children's developmental time extracted as surely as workers' productive time—obscures potential solidarity between parents, educators, and tech workers against platform capitalism. The path forward lies not in better-regulated exploitation of attention but in collective contestation of the attention economy itself.

Suggested Reading

• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff (2019) Zuboff's analysis of how platforms extract behavioral data as raw material directly illuminates the economic base driving the 'harms' this legislation attempts to address without disrupting.
• Prison Notebooks (Selections) by Antonio Gramsci (1935) Gramsci's concepts of hegemony and the integral state help explain how NGOs like NSPCC are incorporated into state-capital policy formation, presenting class-interested positions as universal common sense.
• The State and Revolution by V.I. Lenin (1917) Lenin's analysis of the capitalist state as managing class contradictions illuminates why regulatory approaches preserve rather than challenge platform capitalism's fundamental structure.