Story:A new youth advisory board to help shape online safety Source: Office of the Childrens Commissioner

 Children aged between 13 and 18 are being invited to become members of an advisory board set up jointly between the Childrens commissioner's office and OFCOM to share their experiences of life online and to advise Government on how their needs and opinions need to be taken into account when formulating policy.

The document contains a QR code which directs young people to an application form with a deadline of 26th October 2025 - only 5 days from today.

For the full information please click here. 

 

 

Story:‘Gruesome videos’: social media pushes distressing news to children, experts say Source: The Guardian

 

This Guardian report draws on research undertaken by the UK's internet safety organisation, Internet Matters.

The report states that 'more than half of children who get news from social media are left worried and upset after seeing content that involves war, violence and death, according to new research that found social media companies are “pushing” distressing news to children who are not seeking it.'

The report goes on to describe some of the finding of the research and examples of information promoted to children online. 

It is concerning that the research found that two thirds of children using social media get their news items from social media and 40 per cent of those only get news from items being shared by others.

This is another good reason to monitor your child's activities.

Read the full article here.

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Story:Discord admits compromise of 70,000 Online Safety Act proof-of-age IDs Source: Computing

 

 

 Many children and teenagers use the online community Discord.despite its official age rating of 13 and older. It is very popular among young people for gaming, connecting with friends who share similar interests, and joining communities around hobbies. 

Discord srvers were hacked in early October and the company confirmed that the hack compromised more than 70,000 proof-of-age IDs, required by users to prove their age under the Online Safety Act. That’s according to the company itself, refuting claims that more than two million users have been affected.

Whether younger children were within that data is currently unknown but it is likely. Some reports put the figure much higher. 

Read the ful story here.

 

 

Story:UK’s Online Safety regime unable to tackle the spread of misinformation and cannot keep users safe online, MPs warn Source: UK Parliamentary Committee

 

 

"The Online Safety Act (OSA) cannot keep the UK public safe as it was not designed to tackle misinformation, MPs say today, in a wide-ranging report that urges the government to go further to regulate social media companies and disincentivise the viral spread of false content."

The above statement should be of concern to everyone. We all know that there is a lot of hope based on the Internet Safety Act to help ensure children do not become targets online or get drawn into illegal acts. Concerns about misinformation has been around for many years but in the recent past the volume of the sources of minisformation have grown out of all proporation. 

We know that some misinformation is used to attract children to join in conversations with people online and in some cases those conversations turn out to poisenous. Political misinformation is causing havoc in a number of countries and its potential impact on the outcomes of elections and even the survival of democracy.

Read the full story here. A link to the full Committee Report is on the same page.

 

 

Story:Cyber Crisis: Surge in attacks leaves UK public feeling unsafe online Source: The Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET)

 

Therehas been an increacing number of stories in the press about Cyber Crime. Jaguar Landrover, Bank outages, Heathrow hacks and M&S have all been in the press. Add to this the inmcreasing number of schools and even social media platforms that have been attacked and you can well imaging the concern is growing in the general population.

The article reports that, over a third of UK adults don’t know what to do after a cyber hack with fear gripping over half and most adults in the UK feel that their data is not safe (three in four). Whilst this refers to adults and not children there are a number of ways this will almost cenrtainly have an impact on children. If parents feel as they do they will almost certainly be concerned about other family members. Will their reaction be to ban mobile phones until they regard the children to be old enough. Could they lock down devices so tightly that the wealth of valuable material that is available online will put some at a disadvantage. 

Our approach is to monitor the child's online activity , not in the sense of Big Brother, but as a partner travelling along, what used to be called the super highway, together. 

Read the full story here. 

 

Story:TikTok recommends porn to children, says report Source: BBC News

 

The BBC reports that an investgation by a human right's campaign group discovered that TikTok's algorithm has been recommending pornography and other inapproriate content to children's accounts. the recommendations seem to ignore the safety settings that Tik Tok claim protects children on their platform.

Like many plaforms Tik Tok has a age limite of 13 which should mean that children under 13 do not access the platform but in fact there are probably millions of younger children across the world that access the platform.

Checking childs phone regularly or implimnetation of monitoring tools should ensure that parents can deal with such issues as they arise and discuss the issues that arise with their children.

Read the full story here. 

 

 

Story:Instagram still poses risk to children despite new safety tools, says Meta whistleblower Source: The Guardian

 

Meta rejects review findings, which claim two-thirds of new features designed to protect young people are ‘woefully ineffective’.

The article refers to research results that claim two-thirds (64%) of new safety tools on Instagram were found to be ineffective. The review if the changed made to the plaform were made following a comprehensive review led by Arturo Béjar, a former senior engineer at Meta who testified against the company before US Congress, New York University and Northeastern University academics, the UK’s Molly Rose Foundation and other groups.

The research stated that; 

“Kids, including many under 13, are not safe on Instagram. This is not about bad content on the internet, it’s about careless product design. Meta’s conscious product design and implementation choices are selecting, promoting, and bringing inappropriate content, contact and compulsive use to children every day.”

Parents should ensure that they know what their children are using Instgagram and other Meta services for and ensure that they are not being placed at risk.

 The full story can be found here.

 

Story:Gloucester school children added to 'inappropriate' WhatsApp chat Source: BBC News

 

Hundreds of schoolchildren from three Gloucester Schools were added to a group chat on WhatsApp containing what has been described as "inappropriate and illegal content".

The BBC has seen emails sent to two of the schools warning parents that "a number" of 11 and 12 year-olds in year seven have been invited in to the group called 'World Record Breakers'.

One states that "almost 300 secondary aged children from local schools" are in the group, which might also include "other unknown individuals".

This should trigger ever parent and carer to take immediate action to discuss the situation with their children and ask them to share their phone or tablet to see if they are in the group and to explain the risks they face. It will be important to handle this situation in a supportive way and encourage their children to share their lives online.

The Trust's moniotring project is intended to promote online monitoing of a child's device to provide an early alert when such issues arise so that they can be dealt without delay.