Following Keir Starmer's announcement that social media will be banned for under-16s from Spring 2027, Performance Marketing World brought together voices from across the industry to weigh up what the ban actually means for advertising, platforms and culture.
Our own Annie Harte, Audience Strategy Lead at eight&four, was one of them. Where much of the debate has focused on safeguarding, enforcement and age verification, Annie's piece looks at what happens to culture itself when the audience that shapes it disappears from the feed.
"There's a level of irony in this ban," she writes. "Social media has spent years positioning itself as the home of culture. And that's largely because it's been shaped by young people. So if under-16s disappear from feeds, platforms don't just risk losing users, they lose the tastemakers, trendsetters and communities that brought us brain rot, 67 and skibidi toilet. And don't try to pretend your brand hasn't considered jumping on at least one of them."
Her wider point is that culture has a habit of finding a new home when the old one becomes too crowded. Discord servers, group chats and niche communities are likely to become more influential as younger audiences migrate away from the main platforms. For brands, the real challenge is not losing young people from their audience, but losing visibility into what those young people actually care about.
Read Annie's full contribution, alongside perspectives from the IPA, Usercentrics, IRIS, Edwin Coe and others, on Performance Marketing World.
