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Secure Starmer says no online platform will get a free pass on protecting children
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Yes, it's part of new safety plans where children could be blocked from using VPNs to access adult sites
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as well as having their interactions with online chatbots limited. Well, the move comes as bereaved mother Ellen Room is suing TikTok after her 14-year-old son Jules
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died taking part in an online blackout challenge. Well, I'm very pleased to say that Ellen Room, mother of Jules Sweeney, joins us now
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Very good morning to you again, Ellen. Good to see you. What's your reaction to this news that under-16s may be banned from social media as quickly as the end of this year
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I think it's fantastic news. I was in the House of Lords when Lord Nash heard his amendment about taking children off an unsafe platform, which I fully support
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Are you frustrated that it has taken this long? Do you think once we knew about the harms of social media to children
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when you think of your son Jules do you wish that we have banned social media a lot earlier than this I do And I think if he talking about a ban it basically a product that flawed
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You know, we've got children on a harmful product that's feeding them harmful content
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keeping them addicted by design of the product. And actually, there is no other area in products that we would allow somebody on a product without
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which is harmful. We need to remove that from them. And so although it's banning, it's actually protecting them
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and that's the reason we need to do it. I mean, we're still waiting to hear all of the details, aren't we
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But there's talk of trying to end excessive scrolling, trying to ban children from using VPNs, the private networks
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to access pornography sites. When you hear about these plans, do you think that they're going to work
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I think there's always people that will get around it. If you look at the age of drinking, it's 18
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There will always be children that manage to get a drink before they get to 18
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So, yes, there will be children that work around it, but actually the majority of children will not be able to access
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something that harmful for them so I wholeheartedly support it Do you have hope for a generation of children that won know social media until they turn 16 Correct
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I mean, look at when we ban smoking in places. Nowadays, it's the norm
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You don't go into a pub and light a cigarette, whereas in the past, there was outrage
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that how could we possibly ban smoking from public places? It's the norm. We get used to it
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Ellen, can you explain to us what is actually happening with Jules's phone
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Now, the authorities were able to hold on to it and they originally downloaded a lot of data from it
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What are you hoping, what are they hoping that this will tell you and show you
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So Gloucestershire Police are reinvestigating. So they did do a forensic download on Jules's phone
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13 days after he died. They just never bothered looking at it. So they are now re-looking at that
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to see if we can obtain any kind of data that will get those answers. I have also applied to the Attorney-General
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because I want to redo Jules's inquest. If we can get an inquest we can use the coroner powers to demand the information from social media Yeah Do you think at one stage how long do you think it will be before we begin to get answers
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I don't know. Gloucestershire Police promised me an update every two weeks, which I haven't had
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So, you know, I'm hoping we'll hear from them soon. We wrote to them
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this week, but haven't heard yet. Well, it's an awful wait for you, Ellen
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And, you know, good luck. Good luck to you in the future. Thanks for
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talking to us today. Thank you very much. And again, so sorry for your loss. Spokesperson for TikTok
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has said, our deepest sympathies remain with these families. We strictly prohibit content
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that promotes or encourages dangerous behaviour. Using robust detection systems and dedicated
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enforcement teams to proactively identify and remove this content, we remove 99
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that's found to break these rules before it is reported to us. As a
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company, we comply with the UK's strict data protection laws. And if you want to be in with a shout of winning
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this competition shouldn't have happened so quickly
