Welcome back to the To Be a Boy podcast with me, Elliot Ray and
Jodie Brady. First things first, we are
loving the interaction, loving the feedback.
Please like and subscribe to the podcast for more content on a
weekly basis. Today we have an amazing guest,
an amazing guest to talk to us about online safety.
So online safety is one of the most important and pressing
issues of the day for us. It's on our minds constantly and
we know it's the same for almost all of you listening parents and
carers who are concerned about the content that young people
are consuming online. In 2024, children in the United
Kingdom spend an average of 134 minutes per day on TikTok.
This was followed by Instagram as children in the UK reported
using the app for an average of 49 minutes per day.
According to Ofcom, 36% of children aged 8 to 17 said they
had seen something worrying or nasty online in the past 12
months, and children were more likely to experience being
bullied by technology than face to face.
Research to mark Safe for Internet Day found that 69% of
boys had encountered posts promoting misogyny, with 70% of
teachers saying they had seen a rise in sexist language in the
classroom over the last year. Now this clearly needs
government intervention and finally it looks like we may
have some. So in April this year, the final
version of the children's online safety codes in online safety
apps were published. Ofcom, the online safety
regulator, sets out the final outline of exactly what steps
social media companies will have to take from July.
So now by law to protect children from harmful content
online. The laws will be some of the
most far reaching online safety protections in the world and
mean platforms have to protect children from harmful content
including suicide, self harm, pornography and violent
materials. So today we are delighted to be
joined by the Right Honourable Peter Kyle, the Secretary of
State for Science, Innovation and Technology.
We'll be delving into what online safety codes are aiming
to achieve, how Ofcom, we'll be holding social media companies
to account and what parents and carers need to know to keep
their children safe online. Thanks for joining us, Peter.
It's safe to say that we couldn't ask for a better guest
when discussing children's life online and what we can do to
help keep them safe. So welcome to the podcast.
Thanks so much, I've been really looking forward to speaking to
you. So I won't be exaggerating when
I say that, you know, the biggest issue for parents and
carers right now is how to keep their children safe online.
I have a nine year old and she's getting very interested in
YouTube and Roblox and it's a real challenge for all of us to
navigate. It's stressing me out.
The online world can be dangerous for children and young
people. With porn, the manosphere, deep
fakes, all of that are a touch of a button.
And the mental health implications for children is
huge. So we welcome the Online Safety
Act and the new codes of practice.
Let's start with the bigger picture.
What are your overall aims with the Online Safety Act and the
new Codes of Practice? Well, thanks for having me
again. It is quite simple.
We need to, we need to nail down on safety.
We need to make sure that young people are safe and secure
online, but they feel safe and secure online.
And the two things are related, but they are different.
And parents need to feel that their children are also safe
online. And these are really important
things for two very obvious reasons.
Firstly, safety is incredibly important.
We need to keep our children safe, but feeling safe is also
important, which is the second thing.
Because if you don't feel safe, whether you're physically out
and about in communities and you don't feel safe or whether
you're online and don't feel safe, then you are not exploring
all of the opportunities that are there because you're
constantly worried about what the next step might bring.
And online activity, online life is incredibly important and
going to be growing more important as we go forward.
And we want young people to grow up into the world being cyber
confident, not cyber scared, so that you can explore all the
opportunities that are out there.
But unless you get safety right, you can't do it.
And I'll just say one other thing about your introduction
that that really struck me. You said it's, it's one of the
the main concerns that parents have at the moment.
And I've been reflecting on this for a great deal before I became
a Secretary of State, you know, in opposition preparing the
program of government. And I came to this sort of
conclusion that having spoken to so many parents, having read so
much research and also spoken to so many young people, that if
you're 18 and 19 years old today, then you were born the
year that the iPhone was released.
So if you are a late teenager now, you have never known life
without a smartphone. But then if you put that into
parenting terms, that means that the overwhelming majority of
parents didn't grow up in the age of a smartphone.
So they weren't parented by people who understood how to set
boundaries for you when you were children, how to guide children
through an online life. So there's no parents that are
around currently today that have the lived experience of being
parented in an online environment, in a smartphone
world, in an app based world. So there's there's not something
like other parts of parenting where the in the physical world
where you're used to setting boundaries for young people
about social boundaries, about diet, about exercise, about the
amount of time, you know, on TV, let alone just on online.
All these things were instinctive and handed down
through generations. But we are the first generation
of parents or you are the first generation of parents who is
having to deal with this. And because it's new parents
don't feel equipped. And if you don't feel equipped
and you're worried that it means it drives a lot of anxiety.
And this is something that I'm thinking very carefully about as
we go forward, which I hope we'll come to later in the
conversation. Yeah, it's all new and we're
trying to figure it out. And I think that's why parents
and carers and children are so and so worried and so scared in
the act. You're asking the social media
companies to make some quite big changes to the way they operate,
and it could result in some big behavior change when it comes to
young people online. I think the parents and carers
listening want to know about what it means for them and also
what the social media companies have to do differently.
So can you talk to us about some of the main codes of practice
that the social media companies will now have to follow?
You made it sound quite polite that I'm asking them to do
things. Actually, I'm a bit firmer than
that. I've passed laws and we are
enacting laws which are requiring, demanding, telling
them that they have to do it. And in some cases it's been a
very constructive relationship with the tech companies that
many of the people who are working in tech companies are
parents themselves. So I don't always want to make
out that it's an adversarial relationship.
But clearly we needed to up the floor of where the where the
measures are to keep people safe.
So there's two big steps forward that have happened this year or
one's happened. 1 is happening this month.
The 1st is that as of January, platforms are required to take
down illegal content from their sites and it is a criminal
offence if illegal content is put onto their platforms and
it's not removed. That's the first step that
happened. The second one is the most
important one that's happening and that is going to happen in
July and that is going to be that all material which goes
onto platforms must be age appropriate to those people who
are consuming it. So it will become a criminal
offence if there is material that is unsuitable for young
teenagers and it makes it onto those platforms and it makes it
into the feeds of young teenagers.
Let me just be really clear about how strident these
measurements, these measures are.
Each company could get fined up to 10% of their global earnings.
That takes it well over £100 million.
Secondly, each company has to name somebody in their
organization who is responsible for making sure that age
appropriate content takes place. If they break the law and reach
the criminal threshold, that named person will be held to
account and could go to prison. This is the first time anywhere
in the world this has happened. So individual people are being
held criminally liable in the same way that you would have
experienced in other parts of the world for things like
corporate manslaughter. Well, the same approach is now
being taken to making sure that kids have a content given to
them which is appropriate for their age.
And these two things combined will make a difference.
It will feel different for young people, the experience, and it
will feel different for parents. I'm not saying it's the end of
the road. These are the first, first very
significant steps forward and we need to keep moving forward.
But these are very, very meaningful powers.
Can I just clarify what you mean by illegal content?
Would that cover pornography, suicide ideation and harm to
others? Would that be it in a nutshell?
So if it's if it's set foot out of the legal definition of what
is allowed for pornography, then yes, that's illegal.
When it comes to suicide site, yes that is illegal and they
have already had action taken against them.
There's one site which is has action taken against them.
There is another site which is the most popular and I hate to
use the phrase, the most frequently visited suicide site
is not domiciled in the UK, but they've already geofenced the UK
and withdrawn their site from the UK market.
They actually put a statement out saying that I was infringing
on free speech. Well, of course I waved goodbye
to them and I'm happy that they've that they've gone.
So it does show that the law is actually working again.
I'm, I'm going to say at the beginning, I don't want to
overstate what all these measures will do because I know
that there is gonna be exceptions and there's gonna be
things that will emerge as we take steps forward.
But I hope people will see through the course of this
conversation that I am determined to, to nail down on
these things. And if there are wiggle through
it rounds, if there are things that slip through the net, then
we will act very, very decisively on it.
But these are very big, powerful measures.
And it also covers things like hate speech, the kind of
activity which is illegal offline is very often illegal
online. But there's been no criminal
sanction against the platform for actually posting it and
disseminating it. But now there is that sanction
there. Yeah.
And so the ACT sounds strong. I guess the ME is in the
enforcement and we know that Ofcom have the power to find the
social media companies if they don't comply.
Some of the parents I've spoken to are skeptical about the power
that Ofcom have and whether they will actually be brave enough to
dish out the fines. What would you say to that?
If a Meta or if a Snapchat etcetera break the law, are you
confident Ofcom and the government are actually going to
take action on? That so Ofcom have already
started action based on the powers that they've had since
January, and they started that action within hours of having
the power. Now, I made myself very clear on
what out how I expected those powers to be used.
And that is assertively in the interests of children, young
people and parents in our society.
I've also been the first Secretary of State, which has
issued a statement of strategic priorities.
That is a power that's given to me in law that I can write to
the regulator and I can tell the regulator formally what
behaviour I expect the regulator to take in certain
circumstances. And I've issued a statement of
strategic priority in order to give clarity to how I, as
Secretary of State and how this government expects the
independent regulator to act in order to use these powers and
use these powers on behalf of the children and society that
they are there to protect. And again, they are an
independent regulator, but they are regulated by the laws that
we pass. If I think they need more
powers, then I will come back and revisit the law.
If I think that the existing powers aren't being used
assertively enough, well, I will take this up in the regular
meetings I have with Ofcom, but let me just put onto the record
now that I am pleased with the way they've been using the
powers they have so far. The challenge is always moving
forward and not just banking some wins and moving on to the
next thing or taking your eye off the ball.
We need to continuously move forward until the Internet for
young people feels like a safe place to be and we're not there
by a long way yet. They have the powers, and I
expect those powers to be used. So on this podcast, we we speak
to a lot of parents in advance and get their stories.
And we spoke to a mom whose 10 year old saw some very violent
porn and it really affected their child.
They had insomnia. They were worried about going to
school, they changed their personality, they became quite
withdrawn. What would you say to that, to
that mother? You know, there's been some
criticism that the ACT doesn't go far enough.
You said this is an initial step, but what would you say to
that parent, that mum who wants the government to go further and
feels like the ACT isn't going to stop other families from
going through what she went through?
The first thing is, if she is listening, I am sickened by what
her child had to go through, and I am deeply, deeply sorry that
they had to experience that. I accept entirely that this
happened. I think this is not uncommon.
I think this will be a familiar story to many of the people who
are listening to this who are parents.
I know it's a familiar story to many of the people in the
constituency I represent because I've met parents who've come to
me to talk about this and actually show me some of the
materials made into their children's feed.
But all I'll say is that these powers, when that happened to
her, to her child, we're not even online yet.
They weren't in force. They weren't available to us, to
you, but they are now. I want those powers to be used
in the name of keeping children like yours safe and free from
that kind of interference. I've had a similar situation
where my son has also seen some quite violent porn but he didn't
see it on social media. He found it through, he was
watching YouTube, he said something popped up, he clicked
it, clicked something else and before he knew it, it was on a
horrible pornography site and he saw something really graphic and
he was 10 when he saw that. And I but these laws wouldn't
stop that from happening, would they?
Because that the pornography itself isn't illegal and the
site that he was on that would have been age appropriate
because it was 4 / 18. He just managed to very easily
access it. So is there anything in the bill
that would prevent that from happening in the future?
Yes indeed. In fact, porn sites need to age
verify their sites as well. This isn't just for social
media, this is all platforms. They must make sure that the
material that they supply to their customers, their service
users, are age appropriate. It would be a criminal offence
for a young teenager to to access the material that you've
just described. And we have been into contact
with many of those sites that are UK domiciled so that we have
been engaging with them to explain to them what the law
requires of them. You know, there are, there are
some mainstream sites, there's some big, big, big sites, some
of the smaller ones which are disseminating some of the
material which is probably illegal and is extreme.
These will be tackled if they do not prevent young people from
seeing the content on their sites.
Again, there are many, many of these sites out there.
This is a big task that we've got, but we have the power now.
And if the issue is about resource in how we get to them,
then I'll I'll start addressing it.
Again, I don't want to overstate it, but we have the powers to
take down all of those sites and what you've described would be
illegal. Ofcom joined this whole process,
which is a laborious long process, have been engaging with
porn sites and other other areas on the the Internet to try and
explain to them where they're going and also engage with them
about it. The law requires that all
technological solutions are applied appropriately to their
sites in order to verify the age of the people who are accessing
it. Of COM can do an assessment of
what technology would be appropriate for their sites and
if they believe those sites aren't using appropriate
technology, again, they will be fined, they will be sanctioned.
But if they are, then there'll be progress.
If they're not and I need to go further on things, I'm very,
very open about going further, but the intent is very clear in
the law. We've got a lot of power now,
but I want to reassure all the parents out there and also the
young people who do not want to have this stuff put into their
their feeds and put in front of them to stumble across it, that
if these powers are not used in the right way, I will look
straight away about how I can act to make sure it is.
Peter, let's talk about age. So from the NHS Digital site,
one in six children aged 5 to 16 in England had a probable mental
health disorder in 2021, up from one in nine in 2017.
And this rise correlates with increased screen time and online
engagement. And the Young Mental Health
Foundation found 60% of young people aged 13 to 25 say social
media negatively impacts their self esteem.
Girl Guiding said one in three girls aged 11 to 21.
So they feel unhappy with how they look because of images they
see online. So the the minimum age currently
for Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat is 13.
There are some restrictions and parental approval at that at
that age, but do you think 13 is is really old enough and should
we raise that age like Australia have done to?
16 It's a really good question and I don't have a definitive
answer which is based on definitive evidence and I it's
hard for a politician like me to not be sort of definitive on
every question that's put to me. But on this, I'm quite open
minded and I have been commissioning research from
within my own department. We've been commissioning
academic research into these sorts of issues.
Firstly, my, my view is that parents should be in control of
when their their kids should be accessing different materials
and have access to different apps and smartphones and the
like. But there should be a flaw for
which it is right for every teenager at the moment that's
13. When it comes to social media,
that's the lowest age for, for mainstream social media.
And when you speak to young people, when you speak to
organizations like the NSPCC, see they they don't support
withdrawing services entirely from teenagers or raising it to
something like 16. But there is a lot of emphasis
on tackling the unhealthy behaviour which emerges on them.
And this is something I'm looking at really carefully.
I realise that there'll be a lot of parents screaming into the
ether at the moment because they will have experiences which,
which, which are really painful, difficult experiences they're
going through in families. And they'll be saying, I'm out
of touch on this, but you have to understand that I'm being
asked to pass a law for every child, for every young person
and for every family in the country.
So I do so very, very carefully and mindful of what that means
because there are a lot of teenagers out there who are
using this material in a healthy way and it is reinforcing of
them. And it's, it's, it's helping
relationships which might be distant and all these sorts of
things. So what I'm focusing on is
building the evidence base, which is which is reliable.
And then also thinking about once I've nailed down on safety,
how I move towards health and I'm spending a lot of time
trying to understand what a healthy online life means for
children. I've not heard anyone talking
about this. I hear lots of people talking
about what what health means in the offline world for young
people. We talk about exercise, we talk
about diet, we talk about social networks, we talk about
accessing different services and boundaries and all these sorts
of things and curfews and bedtimes and things.
But we don't have that same conversation about what a
healthy childhood looks like online.
So I've been having that conversation within my
department, trying to understand where I move forward with the
agenda and what my what my agenda is for online life.
And I'm looking at things like some of the addictive nature and
some of the apps and how we can start tackling some of the
addictive nature of the apps when it comes to young people's
use. I'm thinking of things like
sleep, which is incredibly important for young people, and
how some of these apps interfere with sleep.
I'm looking at things like studying and the interruption
that people have for their studies.
And I think all of these things are things that I might be able
to do from a position of government in order to help
parents focus more on the lovely side of parenting and have less
time wrenching phones out of kids hands and having a big row
when it comes to bedtime and constantly fretting when they're
on the phones and they're out of sight.
Yeah. Pete, can I ask you, can I ask
you a question on that? Yes, yeah, I definitely hear it
can be. It's complicated, It's
complicated. And one thing I had a
conversation with was a young person in my family the other
day. They're at school, they're in
secondary school and they were saying during their year 10
maths GCSE classes, they're kids with their phones under their
workbooks and texting their friends and they're supposed to
be listening to the teacher. What do you think about that?
I don't think there is any place for smartphones in the
classroom. I'm categoric on that.
Unless there is, you know, a real reason why one particular
class requires it, in which case that would be an exception, not
the rule. I want each individual school to
have the power to enforce it in the way that's right for them.
The Department of Education has done research into this, and 97%
of schools ban smartphones from use on schools already.
The only thing that people ask in addition to that is do we
pass a law that mandates that you can't have phones in
schools? I'm reluctant to do that
because, you know, when you pass a law, you're going to make
people criminally liable. You know, if you start going
down that path, who gets fined or who gets sort of taken to
court or, you know, is it the child, is it the parent, is it
the school, is it the teacher? So when you go down that path,
it becomes very difficult to see how using, you know, legislation
to tackle this issue takes us to a place that's really
constructive. But we do need to make sure that
there are no, no phones in schools.
And there the guidance from the Department for Education is
very, very clear that there's no place for it.
Just to say another thing, which is really obvious that almost
all of your listeners who are parents will understand is that
parents do love being in touch with kids when they're on the
way to school, on the way back from school or after school.
So they, there is a, there is a kind of acceptance that kids
need to have smartphones from a certain age and with parental
permission in parts of their life.
Travel cards, gym cards, cards, these are all held online in
their smartphones now. Also payment systems are all
held in digital wallets now. So there's a lot of reasons why
when you're out of school, you need to have your phone with you
or there's a reason why young people would want to have their
phones with them. So we have to be very careful
about how we do it. But I do agree with the premise
that there's probably too many kids who find a way around it
and they shouldn't be doing it. I just want schools to have all
the power they need to tackle it.
And I think there are some technological solutions that I'm
exploring that could make government more assertive on
behalf of parents and teachers in achieving a smartphone free
classroom. There are some schools have done
the scheme where you put your phone in a locker, don't know
before you go into this classroom, which seems to be
working quite well. But I do know children who are
actively encouraged to use phones in the classroom as part
of their lessons, which then sends the message that that's
very welcome. We had a boy called Josh Sargent
on the podcast who is 15 years old, who agrees with you that
banning phones and banning social media for under sixteens
is not the right way to go. And he thinks that there should
be more moderation on the content that children are
accessing. And you'll know the statistic
about how many seconds it takes for a child on TikTok to access
content that's harmful and misogynistic.
Is that within these laws that you're bringing in, will that
ban misogynistic content? What are we going to do about
the likes of Andrew Tate and these horrible masculinity
influences that are changing our children's brains and making
them see the world in a different way?
Yeah, I feel very strongly about this.
I want young people to be exposed to material that helps
them develop and explore all of their characteristics as young
people, not just exacerbate the vulnerabilities that young
people have. And, you know, you've you've
framed it as as masculinity. So we're talking about boys.
And having been a boy once, I know that I was really lucky in
having a very good father figure, a male role model in my
life, my dad and I was very lucky in having a loving family.
I was also lucky that, in fact, lucky is the wrong word.
I'm very profoundly dyslexic and I have a lot of, you know,
neurological barriers to learning.
I, I, I've never found learning easy.
I left school with no usable qualifications, had to return to
secondary school when I was 25 years old and sit in a classroom
to get qualifications that needed to get me into
university. And that process of trying to
understand why I was socially very aware and capable and
clearly not intellectually, you know, too challenged but
struggled, you know, in so many different ways in the classroom.
That period of sort of self exploration helped me explore
myself for all of my characteristics.
I'm also gay, for example, and that was something that I
struggled with as a young person.
So I went through this period growing up where I really sort
of got to know who I am as a person and all the different
facets of me. And I think it made me quite
resilient because when something, when I, when I
experienced those real vulnerabilities that teenagers,
the teenage boys experience, then I, I was always able to put
it alongside the other characteristics that I had.
And that's, I think what we should be striving for for young
boys in this country. I think we need to help them
understand that they have lots of different characteristics.
It's what makes all of us unique.
And they are prominent in different ways and different
people. And that anxiety and that
vulnerability, the humiliation that you sometimes feel as
adolescents, that's just one part of who you are.
The thing that's grotesque about people like Andrew Tate is that
they plug into that one bit, that sort of sense of
humiliation that young boys have at different points of
adolescence, sense of vulnerability, the sense of
being sort of not, not up to, to sort of life and inadequacy and
and the like. To feed onto that one
characteristic and make out and make them believe that it is the
only characteristic they have is what drives, in my view, the
misogynistic behaviour that's taken root too much in society.
And there's a lot of responses that we need to this.
There's no one silver bullet. There's a challenge for
parenting, it's a challenge for schooling, it's a challenge for
society. It's certainly a challenge for
media, whether it be broadcast or whether it be online.
And it's something that we have to rise to as a society.
Specifically on Andrew Tate, you know, he has over the, in the
past, clearly broken the law and is being held accountable for it
at the moment. But we have to get right the
balance for free speech and get the balance right for where
there is misogynistic behaviour which crosses the threshold that
there is action taken. Getting that balance right is
not always easy and we can see just the Glastonbury how
difficult these decisions are to be made about free speech and
the impact it has on society and how sometimes broadcasters get
it wrong, even those who are as experienced as ABBC, let alone
other platforms who don't have this degree of experience.
There is never an excuse for getting it wrong, but the only
thing we can do is is learn from it and we have to learn better.
Yeah, I think that's the challenging thing, isn't it?
Because a lot of the manosphere content, as we heard from Josh
and others, a lot of it is self help.
A lot of it is useful for these young people, obviously wrapped
up in a lot of misogyny. And, and in the act it does talk
about Remo removing that harmful content.
How is that harmful content going to be detected when some
of it's quite insidious and difficult to to really identify
and people will disagree on on so many levels?
Like how does the government plan to do that when the
manosphere is harming so many people?
We've seen so much research about young boys who engage with
the manosphere. It impacts their mental health,
obviously, that there's an increase against violence
against women and girls. It's harmful not only to
themselves but to others too. How are how are you in these
social media companies going to really under the skin of that
content and weed out the bad bits?
Well, we this government have the pledge to halve violence
against women and girls by over a 10 year period.
And a lot of this activity is now happening online.
There are there are some very straightforward things that I
believe meet the criminal threshold and need action and
require the full force of law. And since in just in the 1011
months that I've been Secretary of State, I have introduced
legislation that outlaws intimate image abuse,
overwhelmingly affecting women, overwhelmingly affecting young
women. This is where men a boyfriend
will post photographs compromising sexually the
explicit, usually photographs of a girlfriend online.
So the law that I passed meant that companies, social media
companies and platforms have to prove that by releasing their
algorithms to Ofcom, that their algorithms proactively root out
intimate images and stop them going online in the first place.
And then secondly, if they do make it online and a complaint
is made, they must remove it within a reasonable time frame.
And we're talking hours and, you know, and days, not weeks and
months and all the rest of it. Otherwise they'll face very
heavy criminal sanctions. So in those sorts of areas I
have been able to be quite assertive in tackling the kind
of behaviour which is driving really hateful behaviour towards
women and is causing in some cases suicide, in other cases
self loathing and all sorts of other really negatively
reinforcing behaviour when it comes to other things.
Just as now I've said that, let me say what, what, what part of
the difficulty is because algorithms are really powerful.
AI is very, very powerful. One of the things that that I
was exploring is why is how we don't incentivize more healthy
behaviour. But even where we have sort of
experimented in feeding young people, or it has been
experimented feeding young people with healthier content
about diet, about exercise, for example, sometimes even that
becomes unhealthy because it becomes obsessive and people
become too too sort of engaged and too active and too obsessed
with health that it then becomes unhealthy and starts in some
cases becoming leading to things like eating disorders and self
loathing about bodies and the like.
So this is always very, very delicate.
And I give that story just to explain how tricky some of these
things are, even though it doesn't stop me acting
decisively when I believe there is a way of doing so.
And if I can just illustrate with a Third Point, a
conversation I had with one of the very, very senior tech
executives in one of the big mainstream social media
platforms. We had this to and fro about
this issue. And I said that algorithms need
to be exploring what where they where they sense there is a
vulnerability in someone, then they need to be supporting that
person with resilience building and other emotionally
developmental material, not the other way.
And this person said, well, it's very difficult.
And I said, hang on a SEC. I said a couple of weeks earlier
I had looked at cars online because I was thinking at the
time of getting a car and then suddenly for weeks afterwards on
his product, I was being fed all sorts of adverts for cars based
on my income, my hobbies, almost certainly understanding what I'm
interested in as a person and putting those interests to use
to generate what would be a likely product that I might be
interested in. I said if you can do that for
me, you can do this. You can understand also other
characteristics in people and surely you can use this as a
force for good. And these are the kinds of
conversations that I'm having which dance in that grey area
between what is tricky because healthy behaviours can sometimes
become unhealthy and what I believe is categoric.
And I can use the law in a very steadfast way to be.
And we need to get to a world because wouldn't it be amazing
growing up in a world where algorithms are proactively
looking out for you and if they believe you have a
vulnerability, using the power that they have to build
resilience and to help you through it in a benign,
supportive way? I mean, my God, what a great
world that would be to live in online.
So just finish off, I know you have to go soon.
So a couple more questions before we end.
Time restrictions. I think I've read about you
talking about the possibility of social media companies needing
or introducing time restrictions for young people on their apps.
I think that would be a great idea.
Lots of parents have battles in their home about getting off at
this time. You can spend an hour and of
course those conversations will go on and I think it is the the
parents responsibility first and foremost.
But having restrictions from their apps and the companies
would also add to the tool to keep our children safe online.
Is this something that you think could be taken forward?
This is something I'm really interested in.
I don't think there is one measure that's going to deal
with the issue. What I'm looking at is a, is a,
is a package of measures which I believe would enable tech
companies and platforms and social media companies to
continue to engage with people of a legal age and upwards and
into adulthood. But to do so in a way which
respects the fact that we as a society want our young people to
be healthy. And they want all of the
relationships and engagements they have in life to be healthy,
nourishing ones. And that means face to face and
it means online with content that comes their way.
So I can't be really specific at the moment because I have put
together quite a detailed package of measures which I
believe will take us a real step forward.
And not just take a step forward in nailing down the rigor with
which we keep people safe. But then take real steps forward
towards incentivizing and delivering a much healthier,
nutritional, safer experience for people online, for young
people online, and will be a real assistant to parents.
But it wouldn't involve me going into every family and trying to
run their family for them. And I think that's what people
need. And if I take the first steps in
this direction, the first pledge I make is that they will be
meaningful steps. The second pledge is that I will
not see this as the end of the road.
Because I think with the scale and speed of innovation in
technology and on platforms, then we need to keep up with
them in the way that we adapt our relationship between
government, families, children, people, our citizens and those
companies as well. And we need to move forward
together, not just be always lagging behind the companies.
From the 25th of July these these rules are enforced.
Can you give us an example of what a company has told you they
are planning to do from later on in this month?
Yeah, that's right. From the 20, these new powers
come online. This isn't coming out of the
blue for tech companies. They've known this is coming for
a very long time and Ofcom has been working with them.
I've been engaging with them to ask them.
So to give you 1, to give you one example, there is a lot of
now age verification technology which goes on young people's
faces. It's not 100% categoric yet.
It's not appropriate for every platform.
There are other there are other technologies which assess
people's faces. You can also use some ID card
systems which match biometrics to ID cards.
Each company has got to find the right way of verifying someone
age that's right for them. And I've been to one of the
companies that's been doing this and I've been I went with a
bunch of young people and got them to test it.
I got them to put masks on because you can get some very
weirdly human like masks of adults.
It's all straight through it. And the technology didn't allow
them through the age gate that was before them.
So it will be a big step forward.
Is it going to be 100% effective?
No. But even if we get, you know, I
don't know, even if we get near 100, even if we get to 90%, it's
a big step forward. And I just want to reassure
people that I'm looking at about what government can do.
We're in an age where the gov.uk app opens up a whole series of
public services to them at their fingertips.
So I'm now developing this technology in house within in
the government and I'm trying to think really creatively about
how we can offer some services and facilities to the tech
companies that could be more categoric in nailing down the
age verification and how government can be a partner.
And in return I would have higher expectations for the them
to implement it and keep people safe online.
OK, let's let's end with talking about support.
So the ACT mentions that children will be supported if
they have seen harmful content online.
Who will be responsible for for giving them that support, and
how and how quickly will they be able to access that support?
Well, one of the things that we're doing is rolling out
mental health support in every secondary school.
We're also returning or creating mental health hubs in as many
communities up and down the country as we can.
We know that we have real challenges.
We almost have an epidemic of mental health challenges because
of post COVID, because of social media, because of an ever
changing world and young people are experiencing things that no
other generation has pressures and influences and we need to
make sure that all the support is there for them.
So we're firstly putting it there in school.
We're also reinforcing the mental health that's available,
support that's available in communities.
And if parents believe that they are being impacted by this
material material, they should speak to the school to see
whether they can access some of the services there and certainly
contact their GPS and others other other gateways into health
and mental health support as quickly as possible.
And this is a a big change, it's a massive change.
I'm speaking to people and they're not, they're not aware
of this, this change that's happening.
So there's a massive comms campaign.
Obviously this is part of it. What are your plans for making
sure parents and children understand their rights and
protections under the ACT? What What's your communication
strategy look like to make sure every parent and child knows
about the changes that are coming ahead?
I want every single parent to understand what's available out
there and what the law says. Again, it's one of these things
where we've all inherited knowledge from growing up and
understanding the law as we go through life.
But this is all very new for people.
But these are very powerful new laws.
I've spoken about it a lot on the TVI try and land lots of
messages in the media, but sometimes it's really difficult
to land something because it gets obliterated by whatever
else is happening. But as we as we approach the
25th. Of This month, when these new
powers coming come on board, I want as many people to to
understand as possible. So my department is working
really hard to figure out how we can get to as many people as
possible. Me being here on your show is
part of that. I know that that gets to almost
every parent, because what parent would not be?
The same podcast, of course. Of course.
So, so, so I'm trying as much to be available to explain these
things, but also explain what my approach is and what this
government's approach is and what we'll be doing into the
future because this is just the start.
Yeah. So, Peter, thank you so much.
You're a busy man. So thank you.
We really do appreciate you. You coming on the podcast.
I believe you. You know, I believe you.
I feel your passion and we are here to support, you know what,
what we can do to make sure the messages get to people.
And I really hope that these changes will have the intended
impact. You know, we started off talking
about some of the statistics. This is serious stuff.
Parents are worried. It's good to see the action and
I, I hope that we can implement the action so the social media
companies do better and protect our children online.
Any final words before you go? Well, I.
Just want to say thank you for having me on.
I also want to say thank you for your final words there, because
the fact that you'd say that you believe me means the world to
me. But it also is very motivational
when Someone Like You, with all your experience and the
connection you have to such an amazing audience, says that, it
really, really makes me want to go away and deliver.
Deliver for the kids, deliver for parents, so that we can
start to create the healthier world that we're all striving
for in an online world as well as just in an offline one.
Lovely. Great way to end.
Thank you so much, Peter. Take care.
Thank you. Thanks a lot.