Guardian Essential poll: two-thirds of voters support raising minimum age for social media to 16

Almost half of Guardian Essential poll respondents say tech companies including Meta, Google and TikTok have been ‘mostly negative’ for young people, compared with 19% ‘mostly positive’. Photograph: Ian Allenden/Alamy

More than two-thirds of voters support raising the age limit for social media from 13 to 16, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll.

The poll of 1,160 voters, released on Tuesday, finds an increasing appetite for government regulation of hate speech, social media and artificial intelligence.