On 15th July, the U.K. government announced new rules to safeguard older teens online, such as a midnight curfew and a cap on infinite scrolling, as social media platforms are under renewed pressure regarding their online safety.

The government said Wednesday that teens ages 16 to 17 will automatically be subject to a default overnight curfew of midnight to 6 a.m. and addictive features, such as infinite scrolling and autoplay, will be turned off. Teens will, however, be able to turn off these settings.

It’s expected to go into force by Spring 2027.

The measures followed the successful introduction of a trial of social media restrictions that revealed improvements in sleep and focus, with teens reporting an overnight ban. Over 300 teens and parents took part in the trial, which was conducted across the U.K.

The social media experiment lasted for a duration of one month, and more than 300 teenagers and their parents from the UK participated in the experiment using three types of interventions. These were: imposing restrictions on the number of minutes teenagers could spend using social media apps, which was limited to 15 minutes per day; curfews on social media apps between 9 pm to 7 am, and banning certain social media apps altogether.

It determined the participants experienced a variety of mental health advantages, like better temper, reduced stress, and better energy during the day. But they also observed a “social and emotional trade-off” – they rely on social media to connect with friends who were not experiencing restrictions.

As a result, the overnight curfew was most favoured to balance the health benefits with teens’ social needs.

The outgoing U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a blanket social media ban for teens under the age of 16 in June. It came shortly after Australia was the first nation in the world to implement a ban in December. The U.K. ban would cover apps such as Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and X.

The attention being paid to tech giants follows a trend of governments around the world moving to protect children on social media. The EU will pursue age restrictions on social media platforms to limit young people’s use of the platforms, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Monday.

Ali Law, TikTok’s director of public policy and government affairs in Northern Europe, defended the platform, saying it’s designed with safety in mind, in a conversation with CNBC’s Karen Tso and Steve Sedgewick on Tuesday.

TikTok has more than 50 pre-set safety features for users under 16 years old, including a screen time limit and a 10 p.m. screen takeover which encourages users to take a break, he noted.

These are all little “default” things that we do, “little nudges” to ensure people have a balanced relationship with our app; that works in our interests, because if they’re using it too much and they’re burnt out, they’re not going to get value from it,” Law said on “Squawk Box Europe.”