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Social media is a 'toxic tidal wave - and we're not doing enough to protect children', Duchess of York warns
4 May 2025, 14:59 | Updated: 4 May 2025, 15:11
Sarah Ferguson has warned that new measures to improve online safety for children don’t go far enough.
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The Duchess of York said that young people would still be affected by the “tidal wave of filth and toxicity on social media”.
Writing for LBC, the duchess said that on social media anyone - not just people in the public eye - can “become the brunt of cyberbullying and trolling”.
In a piece decrying the dangers of the internet, she said that she had faced cruelty from the tabloid media in her initial years of fame in the 1980s.
She said she was affected “deeply” by the criticism in the media, and “spent time and energy trying to please everybody”.
LBC reporter speaks to a panel of teenagers about their online safety
The duchess said she now understood that “when you walk into a room 50 per cent of the people there may like you, 50 per cent may not, and that’s just fine.”
Similarly, children need to be taught that the internet can be a “dark” place where “very often people aren’t kind to each other”, she said.
She added that this wasn’t a trivial issue, with mental health issues soaring among young people, and “not enough is being done to protect children from these dangers of social media”.
The duchess called for people not to be allowed to “post hatred and bile” under pseudonyms.
“If you want to post that kind of thing, I think you should be required to put it in your own name,” she said. “We’ve had enough of anonymous hate-posting.”
The duchess added: “Social media offers great platforms for communication but it can also be a nightmare. Let’s be honest, much of it is an absolute sewer. People say things to each other they wouldn’t dream of saying in the real world.
“I find it very sad that people spend so much time and energy being so cruel to others.”
Young people themselves should be involved in reforming social media rules, she said.
“The new Youth Impact Council, a nonprofit organisation I founded last year, aims to do just that - amplifying the voices of youth activists making an impact in their areas.
“We seek to bridge the intergenerational gap by connecting our young people with established leaders to cut through the tape and accelerate change.”
New children’s safety codes from Ofcom were published in April, and will come into force over the summer.
The measures will force firms to block children from being able to see harmful content, and put in place age checks to make sure they can’t access it.
And they will also be forced to set up a ‘safe search’ for children to stop them finding suicide content, or material on eating disorders or self-harm.
If companies are found to have broken the strict new laws, Ofcom can impose fines of up to £18 million, or 10% of worldwide revenue, or seek a court order to block access to them.
An Ofcom spokesperson said in response to the duchess' comments: "The changes we’ve announced are a reset for children online.
"They will mean safer social media feeds with less harmful and dangerous content, protections from being contacted by strangers and effective age checks on adult content.
"Ofcom has been tasked with bringing about a safer generation of children online, and if companies fail to act they will face enforcement.”
