Parents 'powerless' over children's use of social media, Kate Winslet says
3 December 2022, 17:10 | Updated: 3 December 2022, 17:15
Kate Winslet has urged social media firms to enforce age restrictions as she said parents feel "utterly powerless" to protect their children online.
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The Hollywood actress said social media is "frightening to parents because we don't really know what's there".
She told the BBC: "We don't know really what's going on in their friendship groups anymore because so much of it is actually built on phones, inside phones.
"This world that you can burrow deeper and deeper into it, and it becomes darker and trickier and much, much harder for children to navigate.
"I think because people, young children, are having phones at a much earlier age, they're able to access things that emotionally they're just not equipped or sophisticated enough to know how to process."
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Winslet stars in a new Channel 4 drama about a single mother whose 17-year-old daughter struggles with her mental health, with problems exacerbated by social media.
The Titanic star added: "I do wish that our government would crack down on it. I do wish that there would be certain platforms that were banned before a certain age. I wish that security checks would be much more rigorous."
She also said there should be "more protection and accountability" as parents "are left flailing".
Winslet's warning comes after the culture secretary urged social media firms to work harder to protect children online or face "severe punishments" including hefty fines.
Fresh changes to the proposed online safety bill will tackle the "absurd situation" surrounding the enforcement of age limits on social media platforms, Michelle Donelan said.
She told LBC's Nick Ferrari at Breakfast this week: "We are removing the legal but harmful (duties), which would have led to unintended consequences and have an erosion of free speech.
"Whereas we're rebalancing this for some common-sense approaches."
