Britain’s head of counterterrorism has called for a ban on children using social media, describing the tech as a ‘cancer’ on young people’s lives.
Matt Jukes has called on Britain to follow Australia’s lead, after the nation down under passed the world-first ban on social media use by under-16s last year.
In a highly unusual move from a senior policing figure, Mr Jukes told The Times Crime and Justice Commission that introducing a similar ban warrants ‘serious attention’ and should be ‘explored’ by ministers.
He said online radicalisation and isolation during the pandemic had led to a surge in young people appearing in the casework of MI5 and counterterrorism policing.
Politicians across the divide echoed the anti-terror chief’s comments, with home secretary Yvette Cooper stressing that ‘nothing can be off the table’ when asked whether the government would consider a social media ban for children.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp went one further and said the age limit could be lower than 16.
Mr Philp told The Times: ‘I’m sympathetic to banning under-16s being exposed to highly addictive social media platforms on smartphones.’
Going into detail about the suggested ban, Mr Jukes called for significantly greater regulation of social media companies and said the Online Safety Act was ‘necessary’ but ‘not sufficient’.
Matt Jukes (pictured) has called on Britain to follow Australia’s lead, after the nation down under passed the world-first ban on social media use by under -16s last year
Mr Jukes said online radicalisation and isolation during the pandemic had led to a surge in young people appearing in the casework of MI5 and counterterrorism policing (file image)
A senior policing figure, such as Mr Jukes, commenting on political matters publicly is highly unusual.
But Mr Jukes stressed that social media should be restricted for children in a similar way to smoking – comparing the harm created by these sites as similar to the ‘cancer’ caused by cigarettes.
However, he added that the UK could not afford to take the same amount of time to tackle the ‘content which is driving violence in our communities and in the lives of young people’ as the ‘decades’ it took to regulate smoking.
His words came as Ms Cooper revealed that the violent and extremist videos that Axel Rudakubana had watched before carrying out the Southport killings were still online despite government calls for their removal.
In November last year, the Australian Senate passed laws to block under-16s from platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to protect their mental health
The new laws raising the social media age limit are regarded as the strictest in the world and Mr Jukes backed a similar law on these shores.
But this move has not been backed by a recent study, which suggested that school phone bans don’t actually produce any positive effects.
Researchers from the University of Birmingham looked at 1,227 students from 30 schools across England – 20 of which had restrictions on using phones during school time.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper slammed social media companies for failing to remove violent videos watched by killer Axel Rudakubana ahead of the Southport murders
Ofcom data shows that most children receive their first mobile phone between the ages of 10 and 11, sparking concerns that children are being exposed to harmful social media from a younger age
Their analysis found no connection between phone bans and higher grades, improved mental wellbeing, or better physical health.
Whilst the government explored the possibility of a ban, Mr Jukes suggested ministers should look to strengthen the Online Safety Act in the short term to make sure platforms policed private messages.
New requirements for social media companies to actively remove illegal content from their platforms will be introduced in new legislation next month, while protections from legal but harmful content are due later this year. However, this does not apply to private messages.
The companies were urged by Mr Jukes to deploy its algorithms to tackle ‘harmful, hateful content’.
The proliferation and ease of access of social media had made the terror threat to the UK unprecedented by enabling a ‘torrent of online harmful material’, Mr Jukes said.
Because of this, Britain was facing a ‘torrent of online harmful material’ alongside the threat of ‘hostile state actions and organised terroist groups’.
Mr Jukes said: ‘We are facing hostile state actions, we are facing organised terrorist groups and we are facing this torrent of online harmful material. So compared to where we were in the last decades, that wider front is stretching out in front of us.’
