Action In This Area

Grok will no longer sexualise photographs of real people where that was illegal, yet Peter Mandelson’s Wes Streeting would ban under-16s from social media. Lord Mandelson’s formal and informal role in public life is a far greater threat to our youth, and Keir Starmer’s initial judgment that he was the most diplomatic choice for Ambassador to the United States makes both of them demonstrably unfit.

Like banning smartphones at the table as we were banned from having personal stereos, it would be simple to ban smartphones from schools, which have always called home, or been called, when necessary. But banning social media for under-16s would deny them the formative experience of their generation internationally, together with any ideology other than that of the schools and of the official media. The people who want it, want to lower the voting age to 16, having already raised the school leaving age to 18, when they want conscription.

Sexualised images of children are not free speech, nor are non-consensual sexualised images of adults, the United States has no qualms about applying its legislation extraterritorially, and any company doing business here has to abide by our laws when doing so. All of that said, the Online Safety Act that was passed when Kemi Badenoch was Secretary of State for Business and Trade, not the immediately responsible Department but not the furthest removed, and when the Conservative Party still delighted in the membership of several people who were now prominent in Reform UK, including Nadine Dorries, the Secretary of State who introduced the Bill.

At committee stage, the evidence of Hope Not Hate was given by Liron Woodcock-Velleman, who was then a well-connected Labour councillor in Barnet. Scandalously, he is now out on bail while awaiting sentence for offences including sending naked pictures of himself to a 13-year-old girl. His crimes were startlingly similar to those of his fellow London Labour councillor and right-wing stalwart, Sam Gould, who was an aide to Streeting. Elon Musk is the least of our worries.