Kate Winslet has called on the Government to do more to protect children on social media platforms. The Oscar-winning star features alongside her own daughter, Mia Threapleton, in a Channel 4 drama about the dangers of the online world.
In I Am Ruth, Winslet plays a mother who sees her daughter become consumed by the pressures of modern life online. Speaking on Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, the 47-year-old said many parents feel "utterly powerless" to help their kids in similar situations.
She said: “I really do struggle with social media. I struggle with the impact it is clearly having on teenage mental health.
“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.”
Winslet said teenagers would likely work out how to bypass any security measures aimed at stopping them accessing platforms, saying: "Where there's a will there's a way." However, she added: “But I do believe that there needs to be a lot more protection and accountability because parents are left flailing going, ‘Thank you so much, Government, look what just happened to my child’.”
It comes after the Government dropped measures to ban “legal but harmful” web content as part of its Online Safety Bill. Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan said including the restriction risked an “erosion of free speech” but campaigners said the move amounts to a “watering down” of the Bill.
I Am Ruth is an instalment of the Bafta-nominated and female-led drama anthology series I Am, created by filmmaker Dominic Savage. The fictional storyline for the two-hour programme, which looks at the mental health crisis affecting young people in the UK, was developed and co-authored by Winslet and Savage.
Anna Edmundson, head of policy and public affairs at the children’s charity NSPCC, said: “Kate Winslet is saying what all parents are thinking – how do I keep my children safe and well as they grow up navigating the online world, and social media in particular? Families can be given the peace of mind they need and deserve by the Government delivering an online safety Bill with child protection front and centre.”
Ms Donelan said: “Unregulated social media is hurting our children and it must end. I am bringing a strengthened Online Safety Bill back to Parliament which will allow parents to see and act on the dangers sites pose to young people. It is also freed from any threat that tech firms or future governments could use the laws as a licence to censor legitimate views.
“Young people will be safeguarded, criminality stamped out and adults given control over what they see and engage with online. We now have a binary choice: to get these measures into law and improve things or squabble in the status quo and leave more young lives at risk.”
