Girls with additional needs at ‘significant risk’ from social media algorithms, report shows

Social media algorithms are “exacerbating” the vulnerabilities of girls with additional needs and exposing them to “serious harm”, a new report has warned.

Girls with additional needs (AN), including special educational needs (SEN) and mental health problems, are shown content on topics such as self-harm and eating disorders at higher rates than their peers, experts have said.

Research by online security charity Internet Matters found only Independent, It shows that 84 percent of girls and 75 percent of their male counterparts have been harmed online. The report found that children with AN were significantly more likely to experience harm online overall (79%) than those without (63%).

Katie Freeman-Tayler, director of policy and research at Internet Matters, said girls with AN spend more time online than their peers and often report low mood and high anxiety. This, combined with platforms designed to show you more of the content you engage with, can lead to them getting caught in a harmful content “cycle,” he said.

“Children with additional needs in general spend more time online, and spending more time online is linked to exposure to more harmful content,” he said. “Research shows that girls with additional needs often start from a lower level of wealth.

“Obviously this can inform what you’re looking at online… so when it intersects with platform design and broader societal challenges that young girls are exposed to, the amount of harmful content seen can be even greater.”

The term “additional needs” in the report refers to children who have an education, health and care plan (EHCP), which are legal documents designed to guarantee support for young people with Send, who have special educational needs support or who have an intellectual or physical disability that requires professional support. Campaigners said the term applied to one in five children in the UK.

Girls with AN are exposed to significantly more self-harming content than boys (16 percent versus 22 percent), content promoting unrealistic bodies (21 percent versus 29 percent), and hateful content such as sexism (24 percent versus 30 percent). The authors of the article explained that these differences are significantly larger than the differences in harm experienced by girls and boys without additional needs.

The large-scale study found that children with AN were 18 percent more likely to use AI chatbots than their non-AN peers. Of those, 50 percent said they “wouldn’t worry” about following advice given to them by a chatbot.

Ms Freeman-Tayler said children with AN often used chatbots for companionship, but had difficulty distinguishing between a sycophantic, AI response and a real, human response.

Children with AN are more likely to report having difficulty controlling how much time they spend online and continuing to watch the same things even if they don’t enjoy them.

They are almost four times more likely to do something dangerous because of something they saw online, and nearly twice as likely to be bullied by both people they know in real life and strangers, according to the report.

“Children with additional needs are spending more time online and experiencing the best and worst of life online,” Ms Freeman-Tayler said. “Online environments are often an environment where they can feel safe and have some independence.

“But given the increased emphasis on online spaces by children with additional needs, I think it may be harder to opt out as a result.”

Internet Matters is calling on the government and regulator Ofcom to mandate robust age checks, which it says are “particularly important” for children with AN, whose developmental age may be younger than their biological age.

He also said the government should ensure that legislation, including the Online Safety Act, is continually reviewed to ensure all children are adequately protected.

A spokesman for Ofcom said the regulator’s rules required a “safety-first approach” that included “tackling harmful algorithms, strong age checks and stopping children being exposed to the most dangerous content”.

They added that tech firms that fail to comply with their duties “can expect enforcement action.”

A government spokesman said the latest consultation on social media restrictions on under-16s received more than 100,000 responses on topics including the use of artificial intelligence chatbots.

They added: “We are determined to act quickly because we know the harm children face online, but we will do so in a way that is effective, actionable and works for all children.

“We will set out the government’s response as quickly as possible and, importantly, we already have the authority to act within months rather than years.”