A school leader has warned we risk “sacrificing the future of our children on the altar of our love-hate affair with the tech gods” aswho founded multi-academy trust Oasis Community Learning, said the decision by the social media giant was “utterly irresponsible” and would make safeguarding children harder as a result.Messaging platform WhatsApp uses a smartphone’s internet connection to send unlimited messages, pictures and videos. Users must have someone’s phone number to connect with them.
“Although the decision of Meta to lower the minimum age for WhatsApp users from 16 to 13 is utterly irresponsible, in truth neither we nor they have any idea about the ages of the children using the app anyway.” “We all know that a phone-based childhood is no childhood”, he added, “but we’ve been ignoring the fact that for too many it also becomes the vortex that sucks them into sexual exploitation, self-harm or even worse.”Parent-led campaign group Smartphone Free Childhood has suggested Meta’s decision was “tone deaf” and called for it to be reversed.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the BBC the Online Safety Act, which became law last October. would give the regulator Ofcom powers to ensure social media companies are protecting children from harmful material.Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, unveiled a range of new safety features this week, which it said were designed to protect users, in particular young people, from “sextortion” and intimate image abuse.
Source: Education Headlines (educationheadlines.net)
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