“We Must Keep a Potential Social Media Ban in our Arsenal”

Speaking on the Jeremy Vine Show this morning, presenter of Politics Uncensored on FUBAR Radio Zoë Grünewald argued that algorithmic ‘for you’ pages pose the greatest danger to young people - and warns that without a credible threat of platform bans, regulators have “already lost the fight”.

“We need to keep a potential social media ban in our arsenal as a last resort. I don’t think it’s something we should reach to for trying to put pressure on tech companies to regulate strongly to take their duty of care responsibilities seriously. Ofcom has some powers, but the main power it has is to be able to ban a platform in the UK if it is not adhering to its duty of care. We need to show tech companies we are willing to use that, because otherwise we’ve already lost the fight.”

Drawing on her own experience growing up with smartphones and social media, Grünewald drew a sharp distinction between earlier social media and the era of algorithmic recommendation feeds:

“As a teenager I had a smartphone, I had social media. But what was really interesting was the algorithm. The ‘for you page,’ as we understand it, only came in just as I was leaving school. I am so grateful that wasn’t in place when I was at school, because that is where you start getting all of this content delivered to you, pushed into your phone. You as a young, vulnerable teenage girl with body image issues, confusing messages about sex and relationship education. All of this content swept into your phone by tech companies that is extraordinarily harmful.”

She continued: “So I would say if we can go after something, we should be going after the algorithm and the ‘for you’ pages as well, which meant social media was no longer kids just talking to their friends after school on MSN or Facebook. It was actually anyone in the world could post anything and it would go straight to your phone before you see what your friends post and you’re not searching for it.”

Later on the show, Zoë Grünewald also discussed her appearance on FUBAR Radio’s twice nominated comedy show, ‘Privacy Settings’.

Zoë will be further discussing the topic of social media bans for under 18’s in the UK on her radio show Politics Uncensored on FUBAR Radio, Thursdays at 5pm