Social media firms 'profit from children but fail to protect them'

Social media giants are making billions of pounds in profit out of youngsters while ignoring the harm being done to them, the Children’s Commissioner has said.

Dame Rachel de Souza said the safety of children online remains ‘unacceptably subject to the whim of technology companies’ while new laws to protect them are delayed.

She criticised the Government and Ofcom for moving too slowly in introducing legislation to safeguard children, who are being harmed while they ‘wait for protections to be put in place for them’.

Dame Rachel’s comments come in the foreword of a new report based on the online experiences of more than 250,000 children and parents.

The report - the biggest-ever into children’s online experiences - found that children experience cyberbullying, sexual grooming and online content about eating disorders or self-harm content.

It also warns that harmful content is becoming ‘more sophisticated’ to circumvent regulations, including one case where explicit pornography was hidden in an online video game.

The report also raised concerns that children ‘do not feel in control of their online lives’ and are worried about phone addiction and the influence that social media firms’ algorithms have on them.

Dame Rachel said its implementation was moving at a pace ‘far slower than the growth of new technologies and the technology companies that develop them’.

She said that this was a vital opportunity to protect children from harm but that in order to do so ‘Ofcom must revise the Code to put the interests of children ahead of corporate ones’.

‘We cannot afford to be passive, or we risk failing this generation and generations to come,’ she added.

The study found that up to 69 per cent of children under 13 and more than a fifth of teenagers do not feel safe online.

More than three-quarters of those who did not feel safe online said they did not feel happy with the way they looked because of social media pressures over body image and beauty.

An Ofcom spokesman said that the mandatory consultation on the Act ‘makes for better regulation and ensures it’s legally robust’.

They added: ‘While we’ve already seen some tech firms taking steps in the right direction, once the new duties start to come into force from December, they’ll have to do far more to protect their users, especially children.

‘We won’t hesitate to take action, using the full extent of our enforcement powers, against any companies that come up short.’