Jess Brown-Fuller MP calls on Government minister to ensure children are safe online

Jess Brown-Fuller MP asked the Under Secretary for AI and Online Safety a question this week regarding protections for children on social media. Jess called for urgent reform to improve online safety for children under the age of 16, suggesting that despite the Online Safety Act being implemented last year, young people were still being exposed to harmful content. 

Jess voiced increasing concerns from parents, schools, and young people from across her constituency about the impact of unregulated social media use on children’s mental health and wellbeing. 

Jess highlighted a study of the Molly Rose Foundation, estimating over a third of thirteen to seventeen-year-olds have seen harmful content online, including self-harm, eating disorder or depression-related content, prior to the introduction of the Online Safety Act. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpqqSXJk5iE

Jess Brown-Fuller MP asks what the government is doing to reduce social media harms for children under 16.

The MP for Chichester went on to say that recent reports and studies had demonstrated that harmful content was still readily accessible for children, despite the new law. She went onto to call for a report into the Acts success in preventing Children from accessing harmful content.  

The Liberal Democrats are advocating for the introduction of film-style age ratings for social media platforms - so that apps with addictive algorithmic feeds or inappropriate content would be limited to users 16 and over, and those service with access to graphic violence or pornography would be restricted to users 18+. 

Reflecting on her contribution, Jess said: 

“I hear time and again from families who are deeply worried about the impact social media is having on their children. We cannot continue to place the burden solely on parents, when the platforms themselves are not designed with children’s safety at heart.  

The Online Safety Act was meant to do just that, but it is clearly not working. Protecting children, whether online or not, must always be our priority, which is why I have called on the Government to report on the whether the Act is meeting its stated aim of doing just that.”