It’s 10 years since the then prime minister, Gordon Brown, commissioned a report, overseen by NSPCC and clinical psychologist, Professor Tanya Byron, into what could be done to ensure children’s safety online. It made 38 urgent recommendations. Just 16 have been implemented, and now the current Government’s Internet Safety Strategy wants to develop a voluntary code of practice for social networks – something Professor Byron’s report suggested, was never done and is now, she says, hopelessly out of date.
If a week is a long time in politics, 10 years is several lifetimes in modern technology. New platforms including Snapchat, Instagram and WhatsApp – where a disproportionate number of the 1,300 cases of children being groomed by adults that have been reported to the police under new legislation that is just six months old – have sprung up, and social media use of all kinds and among all ages...