Nine out of ten parents want social media companies to be subject to a legal duty of care to keep children safe on their platforms, a NSPCC poll has revealed.
A ComRes poll of more than 2,700 people, conducted for the children's charity, showed that 92 percent of parents with children aged 11 to 18 backed a duty of care, while 89 percent of the wider public also support the measure.
The survey also found that the majority did not think social networks were safe for children age 11 to 12, with 70 percent saying they felt Facebook was unsafe.
The minimum age for most large social networks is 13 but the NSPCC has argued that the lack of any effective age verification system means the companies need to ensure their platforms are not harmful for children.
The poll findings come as the Government faces mounting calls to impose a legal duty of care on tech companies, a measure the Telegraph has been campaigning for.
Peter Wanless, NSPCC Chief Executive, said: “The support for statutory regulation of social networks is now overwhelming.
“It is clear that society will no longer tolerate a free-for-all under which tech firms allow children to operate in a precarious online world with a myriad of preventable risks.
“The Government’s Online Harms White Paper must impose a legal duty of care on social networks.”
The plan has also been backed by Ruth Moss, whose daughter Sophie took her own life in 2014 age 13 after viewing graphic suicide and self-harm images on social media.
Mrs Moss, from Edinburgh, said: Sophie's death devastated me. No mother, or family should have to go through that. It was so unnecessary; she had so much to live for, she was only 13.
"Social networks should have a duty of care to protect children and vulnerable people from damaging material and self regulation is clearly not working".
The Telegraph understands that the Government is currently considering imposing a duty of care on tech companies as part of its white paper, which is being drawn up by the Home Office and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and sport.
The polling comes as the NSPCC released its blueprint for how it would want to see a statutory duty of care work in practice.
The plan calls for tech companies to face unlimited fines and potential criminal investigations, enforced by a regulator, if they fail to prevent children from being harmed on their sites.
The children’s charity also wants a named high ranking executive to be legally responsibility for ensuring each social media company meets their duty of care obligations, with the threat of being disbarred from holding corporate directorships if they fail.