Earlier this month, I had a very moving conversation with a lovely lady whose father served in the RAF; we were connected by a mutual friend. Her mission?
#Joolslaw – I want to change the laws around social media. Parents don’t have the right to see what their children are viewing – That’s wrong! It’s too late for my son Jools, but I WILL make a difference for others.
Her successful campaign means that “JoolsLaw” will be debated in Parliament on 13th January and I truly hope that this will allow major changes to take place. Tragically, Jools died in 2022 aged only 14 and whilst he took his own life, the coroner was unable to record a verdict of suicide, leaving his parents desparately seeking answers. Requests for them to access his social media accounts were blocked by the social media Companies citing “GDPR and privacy” rules; however who would have known if they had done the decent thing and just allowed Jools parents access so they could get some form of closure. Or are they fearing lawsuits caused by their platforms?
There is reason to suspect Jools may have died as a result of an online challenge; I had to ask around to find out more about these “challenges” that are posted and what I was told has truly shocked me. In my days, we used to build dens and swings on ropes over the local streams. Now our children are being pressurised to show how bold they are by for example videoing themselves biting into a washing machine capsule and letting it dribble out … what child thinks of these things ?! I was horrifed to learn that children are also being encouraged to restrict their breathing and pass out – where are they getting these ideas from?
I have watched “Swiped”, a 2 part documentary shown on Channel 4 about children giving up their mobile phones for 21 days; to see Matt and Emma WIllis’s faces when they realised how quickly they were able to set up an account on social media platforms without any age verification and gain access to images and videos that have no place in our society was an eye opener.
This was something I found when setting up two social media platforms; our first followers were scantily clad ladies – how even did they find our account so quickly unless there is some built in rule that allows this? Is this even something that they pay for in the hope of finding sad and vulnerable people who they can then try to scam?
It has been positive to see that Ofcom has announced new rules which mean Social Media platforms have to take immediate steps to remove illigal content in the first phase of the Online Safety laws which are due to come into effect around Spring 2025. You can see this being discussed here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLB0iaaSko
Our children need protecting online, especially since this appears to be their main way of socialising (!). I am not even going to go down the rabbit hole of how this is affecting their growing brain and the mental health issues that arise because of their new role models – these so called influencers and content creators.
Separately, I’ve been shocked by the amount of profiles on social media accounts that have been allowed to continue after being reported (they even have multiple back ups and so called “fans pages”). What is even more shocking is that a high proportion are “verified” and also seen to have an uncanny ability to avoid being deleted / miraculously re-emerge after 48 hours / remain live although we have been told that they have been removed.
At least one social media platform needs to have a notification for animal abuse and a quicker way to respond to accounts which have been reported as underage and yet posting images of themselve that would be not even be allowed in Playboy magazine. How can a platform even allow an account to be set up called “P0rn69”, let alone say it doesn’t contravene their community guidelines? Yes I know most of the problems stem from using AI to facilitate checking which hasn’t been programmed to take account of the different ways of spelling words let alone links posted for adult sites.
It’s also disconcerting to hear guys talk about “hot girls” without even recognising that all those lingerie clad pictures are just the lure to adult sites where people have to pay them … it’s called online prostitution in most people’s minds.
If you are able to support JoolsLaw by contacting your local MP, I know Jools parents would be so touched. You can find out more about this via the website:
Let’s also all campaign to put an end to the social media accounts that harm our children, other vulnerable people, animals and our environment…
Thank you.
