Baroness Kidron Warns 'Outrage' Driving Rapid Social Media Law Changes
Online safety campaigners are not "winning the argument" but rather public "outrage" is accelerating changes to legislation, according to a prominent filmmaker and children's rights advocate. Baroness Beeban Kidron, founder of the digital child safety organisation 5Rights, has expressed significant concerns that recently enacted laws have fallen short of campaigners' expectations.
Families Fighting for Answers
Ellen Roome, whose 14-year-old son Jools Sweeney died while attempting an online challenge, has highlighted the prolonged struggles families face in seeking information. "Families are spending years fighting for answers that should never have been denied," she stated, emphasising the emotional toll of these battles.
Legislative Action and Amendments
The Crime and Policing Bill is scheduled for debate in the House of Lords this Tuesday, with Lady Kidron having tabled a comprehensive set of amendments. These proposals aim to enhance the preservation of social media data that could prove crucial when authorities investigate child deaths. The crossbench peer recently supported an under-16s social media ban as part of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, though she cautioned in parliamentary discussions that lawmakers need "a better answer than a ban" that addresses "root harms" while maintaining children's internet access.
Government Consultation and Industry Accountability
The Government is currently consulting on measures to strengthen children's wellbeing online, potentially including minimum age requirements for social media access and the removal of features considered addictive. Lady Kidron remarked, "We're winning the crisis – it's a crisis. I don't think we're winning the argument, really. What we're doing is we're winning the outrage." She warned that political expediency might lead to poorly considered bans without proper regulatory context.
The filmmaker, known for works including Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, explained her support for a children's social media ban by noting lawmakers "have to have something" in place to protect young people. She drew a striking comparison: if some digital platforms were "a toy or a fridge or an airbag, they would be recalled by now," criticising technology firms for creating "a state of exceptionality which actually translates into a state of lack of liability."
Data Preservation Challenges
While Ofcom already possesses the authority to instruct social media companies to preserve data about deceased children when requested by coroners, Lady Kidron contends this mechanism "isn't working" effectively. She reports that many coroners and investigators remain unaware of their powers under the Online Safety Act and has advocated for making these data preservation notices automatic.
"Whatever the circumstances are of a child's death, the coroner, the police and parents need to know what's been going on," she emphasised. "This is not about apportioning blame to another user, to the site, to the child. It's about having the information so that one can come to a conclusion about what the contributing factors are."
Blurring Boundaries Between Virtual and Real Worlds
Lady Kidron highlighted a fundamental conceptual shift: "The virtual world, I think we used to conceive it as 'other' and 'different', but the virtual world is increasingly entangled with the real world and certainly for young people. And the same rules apply – if someone died, you'd look around the room, you'd look at what they were doing for the last few days, etcetera. And the same rules must apply online."
She addressed common misunderstandings: "I think people get confused because of the word 'data', but data isn't 'data', data's 'information'. It's the circumstances."
Call for Faster Progress
Ms Roome told the Press Association: "Things are moving more quickly now because the scale of harm has become impossible to ignore. Too many children have been hurt or lost, and too many families, including mine after Jools died, have spent years fighting for answers that should never have been denied."
She welcomed progress but stressed it remains insufficient: "Laws only protect children if they are actually used and right now, vital digital evidence is still being lost in the early hours after a child's death. Until data is preserved automatically and investigations are digitally competent from the outset, we will continue to react to tragedy rather than prevent it, and social media companies will remain beyond accountability because the evidence of what children were shown no longer exists."
Government Response
A Government spokesperson stated: "We've been clear – we will take action to make sure children have a healthy relationship with mobile phones and social media. This is a complex issue with no common consensus and it's important we get this right. That's why we are launching a consultation to seek views from experts, parents and young people to ensure we take the best approach, based on the latest evidence."
Regarding data preservation, the spokesperson added: "Families who have suffered the devastating loss of a child must never feel that the system is working against them. That is why the Online Safety Act compels companies to share data and cooperate fully with coroners' inquiries where there is evidence of a link between a child's death and their social media use. We have strengthened this further by giving coroners the power to require platforms to preserve data immediately, so vital evidence cannot be deleted. We will continue to monitor these powers and will not hesitate to act where evidence shows we need to go further."
