clamp down on

clamp down on (third-person singular simple present clamps down on, present participle clamping down on, simple past and past participle clamped down on)

1. (transitive, idiomatic) To take measures to stop (something); to put an end to.

   Coordinate term: crack down

   The government aims to clamp down on underage drinking.

   • 2018 July 3, Phil McNulty, “Colombia 1 - 1 England”, in BBC Sport‎:

     American referee Mike Geiger's failure to clamp down on early misdemeanours led to him losing control of a game that Colombia seemed determined to turn into a battle.

   • 2023 March 15, Kevin Roose, “GPT-4 Is Exciting and Scary”, in The New York Times‎:

     A few chilling examples of what GPT-4 can do — or, more accurately, what it did do, before OpenAI clamped down on it — can be found in a document released by OpenAI this week.

• clampdown (noun)