UK should ban children from social media because they cannot cope with toxic hate speech, terror watchdog warns
The government’s independent terrorism review agency has warned that children should be banned from using social media as they will be unable to cope with toxic hate speech online.
After Australia last month became the first country to ban under-16s from social media platforms, Sir Keir Starmer has faced mounting pressure to take action amid warnings about the impact on young people, particularly mental health problems and radicalisation.
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said her party would follow Australia’s lead if they came to power, while some within the Labor Party, including Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, called on the government to go further on regulating social media use.
Now the government’s “terrorism czar” Jonathan Hill has backed calls for a social media ban on children, warning that “the question of how to regulate the online space is the most pressing question of our day.”
“When it comes to online hate, my only conclusion is that kids should be offline because their brains are not capable of handling it,” he said.
But he added: “But we’re also talking about adults who are affected by hate.”
The recently introduced Online Safety Act in the UK reflected research showing that children’s brains are damaged and changed by exposure to toxic substances, hate, self-harming material and pornography.
Although the law introduces mandatory age verification for adult content, the government has resisted an outright ban on social media for under-16s, with the unusual endorsement of Reform UK’s Nigel Farage on the issue.
Research from the Health Behaviors in School-Aged Children (HBSC) study, which surveyed nearly 280,000 youth ages 11, 13 and 15 in 44 countries and territories in Europe, Central Asia and Canada in 2022, found an increase in problematic social media use.
This included more than one in 10 adolescents (11 percent) showing signs of problematic social media behavior, struggling to control their use and experiencing negative consequences.
Responding to a question about policing the online space, Mr Hall claimed ministers and the public at large did not understand the limits of their authority in dealing with social media platforms such as Elon Musk’s X (Twitter).
This comes in a week when the government is engaged in a massive battle over the AI tool at X and Grok and the way it is being used to produce sexualized images of women and children.
The issue led Sir Keir and other ministers to stop using X accounts; The prime minister has promised “swift action” against X if it does not resolve the problems with Grok.
“I think even the way the debate is being talked about – the prime minister saying we will ban X – is wrong, because so few people understand the limits of what the UK can do, including articulating what we can do about
In a wide-ranging speech on the fallout from the Bondi Beach Islamist attack in Australia, Mr Hall warned that hatred towards Jews and Israelis had been “normalised” through protests in the UK and other western democracies.
He criticized the police for failing to combat hate, including calls to “globalize the intifada” or “kill the IDF”, and suggested that the police “lack the determination” to use existing laws to combat hatred.
He warned that the approach to freedom of expression and the right to protest must be rethought in light of the consequences of pro-Palestinian protests against Israel.
Mr Hall also admitted he was concerned that agents of the Iranian Ayatollah regime were targeting people in the UK as an extension of their brutal crackdown on protesters.
But he did not address whether the government should prioritize a change in legislation that would allow Iran to ban the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
But Mr. Hall was most concerned about the relationship between hate speech at the marches and terrorist atrocities.
“I know there’s affinity for street protests. When you see a friend on the street saying something different than an anonymous avatar expressing themselves online, there’s a licensing involved.”
He noted that the law clearly defines racism as hatred towards someone based on their nationality, but that “hatred towards Israelis” is normalized.
He specifically referred to the controversy over West Midlands Police banning Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans over fears of armed attacks from Islamist community groups in Birmingham.
He also said police chiefs should do more to eliminate hate at protests and mosques.
He said: “I think what is missing is not the law but determination. One of the things I find a little frustrating in some of the comments from leading police officers is the complaints that they don’t have enough law. And I think the real question is: Do they have enough determination?”
