Children’s Social Media Accounts

Debate between Lola McEvoy and Alistair Strathern

Monday 13th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alistair Strathern]

Some aspects of how Ofcom has said it will take these matters forward are to be welcomed, but I absolutely agree with the underlying sentiment of the hon. Lady’s comment. Currently, what has been set out does not go anywhere near far enough. As representatives of our communities and of the families who want to do everything possible to keep young people safe from online harm, it is our responsibility to ensure that we are holding Ofcom accountable for being far more ambitious about how it can most creatively and robustly deploy the powers that we are giving it to keep young people safe.

[Lola McEvoy]

I thank my hon. Friend for his impressive and articulate outlining of the debate so far. Will he join my calls for Ofcom to strengthen the upcoming children’s code and, as the code is not yet published, to use this opportunity to include functionality, a stronger dynamic risk assessment—a live document that will be constantly updated—and the measures that my hon. Friend has laid out for the smaller and riskier platforms?

[Alistair Strathern]

I concur wholeheartedly. My hon. Friend has been a tireless campaigner on this issue, both in our debate today and throughout the time I have known her—a very short time, but an impressive one none the less. As she rightly points out, the children’s code is a real opportunity to do right by the intentions of the legislation and by the collective ambition that we are discussing today. From my hon. Friend to the children’s commissioner, campaigners on the issue are pretty united about the opportunity that a more ambitious code could deliver for safeguarding young people.

For far too long, we have allowed young people to be exposed to a level of harm online that we would not tolerate in any other aspect of life. It is potentially understandable, but not excusable, that as legislators we are sometimes more comfortable imposing restrictions or acting in areas where we have more direct lived experience, as in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill or the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. Those are tangible things that we are comfortable and used to voting and making laws on, whereas online harm can sometimes feel a bit more nebulous and a bit tougher. However, that is no excuse not to act. The failure to act is written across the tragedies experienced by so many families across the country and so many campaigners in the room today. We must do better, and we have to make sure that this is the Parliament in which we do.

Online Safety: Children and Young People

Debate between Lola McEvoy and Alistair Strathern

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Lola McEvoy]

It is indeed prolific, for all our children—the whole generation. It is interesting that, among the different experts I have spoken to, there is consensus; the argument has been won that children are unsafe online and that is affecting them deeply, across the country. It is our job—it falls to legislators—to rectify the issue. I do not wish to defend online platforms, but they will do what the law tells them to do. They want to operate in this country. They want to make money. There is nothing wrong with that; they just have to adhere to the law. It is our job to make sure that the law is tight to protect our children. That is the crux of the issue.

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is powerfully illustrating the responsibility on all of us to step up to the needs of this moment. Parents in my constituency—at schools including William Ransom and Samuel Lucas—have been leading the way in taking further proactive action, signing up to a smartphone-free pledge to delay the age at which their young people have access to smartphones. Hundreds across the constituency have already signed up to the pledge. Does my hon. Friend agree that that underlines the strength of parental feeling on online safety and some of the wider associated issues, and that it highlights our responsibility to legislate—not just to celebrate the benefits of technology, but to do all we can to protect young people from the very real dangers it presents, too?

[Lola McEvoy]

A smartphone-free pledge is a great idea, and I will take it to Darlington. Parents are further down the line than we are on this; children are further down the line than we are; campaign groups are further down the line than we are. We are lagging behind. We have taken action—the last Government passed the Online Safety Act. I think it is time for us to make sure that there is nothing missing from that Act. In my view, there are some areas where we could go further.

Children in Darlington have said to me that they are getting these unsolicited images—from the algorithms. These images are being fed to them. They are not from strangers, or bogeymen from another country, although that might happen. The most common complaint is that the algorithm is feeding them content that they did not ask for, and it is deeply disturbing, whether it is violent, explicit or harmful. Once they have seen it, they cannot unsee it.

That is why I am arguing to strengthen the codes. I am not sure that we should be retrofitting harmful apps with a code that may or may not work, and having to tweak a few bits of the algorithm to check whether it will actually protect our children. I think we can take stronger action than that.