Keeping Children Safe Online

When I was a kid, I would spend my summer holidays playing football and hanging out with my friends. I worry that children today are spending too much time on their own at home, online. As parents, we tend to worry so much about the dangers of children going out and about when the reality is that the dangers online can be far more harmful and common.

Just this week, Ofcom released data that showed that YouTube is the most popular first TV destination for children aged from 4 to 15. This worries me deeply because, through my work on the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, I have seen how YouTube’s algorithm can cause lasting harms to children. The Committee recently released a report which heard evidence from organisations like the Centre for Countering Digital Hate that demonstrated social media algorithms are pushing extreme content to young people. This includes content that promotes eating disorders and anorexia, which then sits alongside ads displaying everyday brands that teenagers use, like L’Oreal and Ralph Lauren, normalising the potentially fatal subject matter.

People across High Peak know that supporting families and giving kids the best start in life is what drives me. Based on what I have seen in this inquiry and other reports, I don’t believe that social media platforms have children’s safety as their top priority now. We urgently need a shift which keeps children safe online this summer.

That’s why laws like the Online Safety Act, which came into force last week, are so important in protecting children. This law will fundamentally change the way children experience the internet. Children are seeing fewer harmful posts and videos and platforms that host harmful content are now required to conduct age verification to restrict children’s access. The law prevents grooming and stops predatory adults messaging kids, as well as keeping children’s profiles and locations hidden. Ofcom’s new Protection of Children Codes also demand that the most popular apps protect children from seeing things like dangerous stunts, misogynistic or violent material and social media companies will face strict punishments for failing to stop children seeing harmful content.

I support the introduction of this law because I know we need to do more to protect children online. However, not everyone supports safeguarding our country’s children – Nigel Farage and Reform have said that they want to scrap these vital protections for young people online. Reform have nailed their colours to the mast and want to get rid of the biggest step forwards in child safety since the internet was created.

I think this is dangerous and wrong. We should do everything we can to make our children safer and not expose them to the worst that the adult world has to offer.