Today Ofcom laid out its marching orders for tech platforms to shield children from “legal but harmful” content in a major step in enforcing the Online Safety Act. Come July, companies that fail to block kids from ‘harmful’ content risk eye-watering fines. Ofcom director Melanie Dawes was on the Today programme to flog the new rules. She pointed to Netflix’s ‘Adolescence’ as an example of tech companies failing children, and why they need to be regulated now:
“I think in the end what’s happening here and it’s not just in the UK, it is just a change in how people are seeing all of this. Whether it’s the drama Adolescence and that’s brought to life some of these problems of misogyny, pornography, violent content on our kids internet feeds.”
Ministers have already seized the opportunity to make policy from the fictional drama. Meanwhile, science secretary Peter Kyle says the government’s eyeing up social media curfews for kids, saying he’s “watching very carefully” how TikTok’s 10 p.m. lights-out for under-16s plays out, encouraging other social media platforms to consider similar tools. Nanny state latest…
Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock was asked if Burnham will take Britain back into the EU:
“Yes, sure – his commitment is authentic. He really does understand from the grassroots up why restoring what I think of as normality in our continent is vital for every party economically, politically, culturally, in terms of security, and he’s able to articulate it in language that people can understand. So yeah, he is definitely”.