Parent whose child witnessed beheading video welcomes social media ban

Hannah Oertel, of Edinburgh, the founder of the campaign group, Delay Smartphones, which has long campaigned for a ban on the devices in schools, warned that children are being routinely exposed to violent, pornographic, and harmful content.

Her own daughter, while attending choir practice aged just nine, was shown a graphic video of a man being beheaded.

Ms Oertel said she was “very grateful” to learn of the prime minister’s announcement, and stressed that although the measures announced were not “perfect,” they would help protect most children.

Under the plans, under 16s will be banned from social media by spring 2027, with popular platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube among those affected.

Ms Oertel said that children have been “guinea pigs in the biggest social experiment on record,” and said social media on smartphones has caused a “mental health crisis” amongst young people.

Read more: Curb on mobile phones in schools ramps up as latest council introduces restrictions

“Finally the government has listened to parents, 90 per cent said they wanted a ban in the recent consultation,” she told The Scotsman. “This is very long overdue and while it won’t be perfect, the majority of children will be protected from online harms in a way that we haven’t seen before.”

Ms Oertel, who is a parent of pupils attending South Morningside Primary, said her daughter’s experience alongwith the proliferation of such content and the ease with which children are able to access it, encouraged her to set up Delay Smartphones, which began as a pilot campaign for three Edinburgh primary schools in 2023. It now supports other schools and parents across the country as efforts to ban smartphones in school have intensified.

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Ms Oertel said it was only right that tech giants and social media firms should be held accountable in the same way as other companies producing products aimed at young people.

Read more: Parents will be urged not to share children's images online as part of mobile phone ban tech blitz

“Any other business that creates products that children use, first have to prove they are safe,” she reasoned. “Social media companies never did this and their products were only proven to be unsafe for children.”

The UK government has said Ofcom will carry out a “rapid study” on how to do age verification under the new measures in an effort to make sure children in the UK are not able to circumvent the ban as easily as their Australian counterparts.

Ms Oertel said that there will also be a need to consider those children who have been using so-called ‘user to user’ platforms, and now face having their access rescinded.

“The children who are currently addicted to social media will struggle with this initially and so they need our compassion and support as this is enforced,” she explained. “As a parent who has been campaigning on this issue for years, it is emotional, I am very grateful.”