# data[].attributes.body
https://nationalonlinesafety.com/

This resource has really helped parents and staff at my school with a range of webinars and guides on a ton of topics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Georgina W. Teacher - Davenant Foundation School

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Online Safety Training For Schools | National Online Safety

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our online safety training courses, webinars and resources enable schools to keep children safe online and meet statutory online safety requirements.

# data[].attributes.headline
Young peoples online communication and its association with mental health. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Young peoples online communication and its association with mental health. 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Young people’s online communication and its association with mental well-being - ACAMH

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Video abstract from Rebecca Anthony on her CAMH 2023 Special Issue paper ‘Young people’s online communication and its association with mental well-being: results from the 2019 student health and well-being survey’.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
While there is no shortage of polarised (and polarising) debates in education, the question of whether or not schools should ban mobile phones has received particular interest in recent months. With a new law banning pupils from having mobile phones in France's schools coming into force in September, and Damian Hinds and Amanda Spielman both lending their support to schools who choose to do the same in England, it is a debate well worth exploring.

Mobile phone bans and attainment

A widely cited 2015 study by economists from London School of Economics combined pupil outcomes from the National Pupil Database with survey data regarding mobile phone bans from schools in four English cities. They found that student performance in GCSE exams increased slightly after bans were introduced, providing there was a high level of compliance with the ban (Beland and Murphy , 2015). These gains were particularly evident for pupils who were previously lowest-attaining, but there was no impact on attainment for the previously higher-attaining students, leading the researchers to argue that a mobile phone ban could be a cost-effective way to improve pupil attainment and reduce educational inequality. There is an interesting contrast here with Carter et al.'s study of the impact of allowing college students in the US to use personal laptops or tablets in lectures; this found that it was higher-attaining students whose outcomes were more negatively affected by access to digital devices (Carter et al., 2016).

Of course, while Beland and Murphy aim to account for a wide range of potential confounding factors, the study does rely on correlational data. Neither do the authors focus on the reasons why a mobile phone ban may lead to an increase in pupil attainment, assuming them to be related to the 'distraction' factor of mobile phones and citing a range of studies, including Lee et al., that have suggested that it can have a negative impact on learning (Lee et al., 2014). There may be other indirect causes, however; educators including Cameron (Cameron , 2015) have noted the complexity involved in school policies, suggesting that mobile bans are often part of wider changes and may be driven by an existing need in the school - this may mean that such bans will not be effective everywhere.

Mobile devices for learning?

In contrast, then, what might be the arguments against a mobile phone ban? They largely centre around what might be lost when mobile phones are taken out of the equation. Proponents of technology often articulate its benefits in terms of things like creativity, authenticity and curiosity, rather than purely in terms of academic attainment - although, of course, research suggests that these kinds of 'skills' must themselves be underpinned by strong content knowledge (Willingham , 2007). Examples of mobile devices being used to provide pupils with opportunities to collaborate, create and communicate in ways that would previously have been unthinkable (Burden and Kearney , 2018), as well as of their use to support effective questioning, feedback and other high-impact practices (Picardo , 2017), offer a powerful image of how mobile devices can be used for learning.

Of course, a ban on mobile phones does not necessarily mean a ban on mobile devices in the classroom altogether. Phones bring with them particular affordances - and challenges - such as access to the internet outside of the school's control and a plethora of potentially distracting social media apps and games. There may therefore be appeal in banning personal mobile devices in favour of school-controlled devices, even where there is a desire for technology use to support learning in the classroom - the two are not mutually exclusive.

But the flip-side of this is the substantial cost in investing in additional devices - whether borne by the school or by pupils - which is not feasible for many schools, and may also seem unnecessary when many pupils already own a smartphone. The time taken to load up bookable sets of devices, meanwhile, may either mean that they are not used at all or, counterproductively, encourage their use for an entire lesson, regardless of whether they are an appropriate tool for each part of it, rather than being used just for a ten-minute review quiz before being put away, as might be the case with a mobile device.

Self-regulation

Another counter to mobile device bans is the argument that schools have a responsibility to teach responsible use of mobiles (Corbett , 2018). Beland and Murphy (2015) suggest that the difference in the impact of the ban on attainment for lower-attaining and higher-attaining students that was seen in their study may be due to lower-attaining pupils being more likely to be distracted by the presence of mobile phones, while higher-attaining pupils seem able to focus in the classroom regardless of the mobile phone policy. If we see it as important that pupils develop the ability to focus on learning, even when they have access to mobile phones and all their temptations, it is easy to follow's Corbett's argument; schools should be supporting pupils to self-regulate their use of technology, rather than simply banning mobile phones, so that the benefits may then also extend beyond the school walls too. Of course, this in itself raises other important questions about the boundaries between the role of the school and that of parents!

Consistent behaviour policies

An important, if unsurprising, finding in Beland and Murphy's study (2015) was that the increased pupil attainment is only seen in schools where the level of compliance with a mobile ban is high; in schools where a ban is introduced but not widely complied with, there is no impact on attainment. Even in schools where mobiles are 'permitted', of course, there are almost always some restrictions: some schools allow their use under teacher direction, while others allow their use only in designated areas at breaktime, for example. But it may be that one of the benefits of a total ban on mobile phones is the clarity and clear boundaries it creates, supporting more consistent application of rules.

Consistent expectations and practices between all staff and pupils are key to driving positive student behaviour (Bennett , 2017), and as Kraft and Papay note (Kraft and Papay , 2014), a consistently applied behaviour policy is also one of the factors associated with effective professional environments in schools. So whether schools choose to ban mobile phones outright, or restrict their use in another way, consistency seems to be crucial - both for pupil attainment and for teachers' own development and job satisfaction, too.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Banning mobile phones in schools: Reflecting on the debate

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While there is no shortage of polarised (and polarising) debates in education, the question of whether or not schools should ban mobile phones has received particular interest in recent months. With a new law banning pupils from having mobile phones in France's schools coming into force in September, and Damian Hinds and Amanda Spielman both [...]

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Posted on

In this Papers Podcast, Professor Andra Siibak, Professor of Media Studies at the Institute of Social Studies at the University of Tartu in Estonia, and Kristjan Kikerpill, lecturer in Information Law and Digital Sociology of the same institution, discuss their co-authored Child & Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) journal Special Issue paper, ' Schools engaged in doom-monitoring students' online interactions and content creation: an analysis of dominant media discourses' (doi.org/10.1111/camh.12621). There is an overview of the paper, methodology, key findings, and implications for practice.
Discussion points include;

The types of activities that are monitored by schools using student activity monitoring software.

The global nature of online monitoring of students' online interactions and content creation in schools.

What does the phrase 'doom-monitoring' mean and how it came about.

The implications of the inaccuracy of the technology on students being monitored.

The impact of this kind of monitoring on marginalised children

The difference in opinions of teachers and parents and students regarding the use of online monitoring.

How might this type of technology be improved to better support young people.

In this series, we speak to authors of papers published in one of ACAMH's three journals. These are The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (JCPP); The Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) journal; and JCPP Advances.

Subscribe to ACAMH mental health podcasts on your preferred streaming platform. Just search for ACAMH on; Podcastaddict, JioSaavn, Listen notes, Radio Public, and Radio.com (not available in the EU). Plus we are on Apple Podcasts visit the link or click on the icon, or scan the QR code.

I am a lecturer in Information Law and Digital Sociology. In my everyday teaching assignments, I teach freedom of expression, and privacy law, to upcoming journalists and communication students. The other side of my research activities, often carried out together with Andra, are multifaceted because I study online scams but also the datafication of education, in particular issues with surveillance and the use of artificial intelligence in carrying out surveillance.

Andra Siibak is a Professor of Media Studies and Program Director of the Media and Communication doctoral program at the Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia. Her main field of research has to do with the opportunities and risks surrounding internet use, datafication of childhood, new media audiences and privacy. Together with Giovanna Mascheroni, she co-authored a monograph " Datafied Childhoods: Data Practices and Imaginaries in Children's Lives" (2021) published by Peter Lang. Andra is a member of the Estonian Young Academy of Sciences, and a member of Film, Media and Visual Studies section of Academia Europaea. (Bio and image from Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Doom-monitoring Students' Online Interactions and Content Creation in Schools - ACAMH

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In this 'Papers Podcast', we are joined by Professor Andra Siibak and Kristjan Kikerpill (pic) to discuss their CAMH journal 2023 Special issue paper 'Schools engaged in doom-monitoring students' online interactions and content creation: an analysis of dominant media discourses'.

# data[].attributes.body
Please complete this short survey for this afternoon’s webinar

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Digital Parenting - Vodafone UK News Centre

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
News, features and expert advice about how to keep your family happy and safe online.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Skip to main content

Cookies on GOV.UK

We use some essential cookies to make this website work.

We'd like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services.

We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.

You have accepted additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.

You have rejected additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.

Accept additional cookies Reject additional cookies View cookies

Statutory guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment.

Details

This guidance applies to all schools and colleges and is for:

headteachers, teachers and staff

governing bodies, proprietors and management committees

It sets out the legal duties you must follow to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people under the age of 18 in schools and colleges.

All school and college staff should read part 1 of this guidance. Part 1 of the guidance is also available as a standalone document.

Statutory guidance sets out what schools must do to comply with the law.

Where the guidance states schools and colleges should do something, you should follow this unless you have a good reason not to.

'Regulated activity in relation to children: scope' describes work that a barred person must not do. We have also published guidance on disqualification under the Childcare Act 2006.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Statutory guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment.

# data[].attributes.headline
Article on Andrew Tate, linked to webinar discussion of extremist influencers 

# data[].attributes.subject
Article on Andrew Tate, linked to webinar discussion of extremist influencers 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ndrew Tate used to cruise along these scruffy suburban streets about 10 miles from the centre of Bucharest in Romania. Past a litter dump and a sprawling cemetery and a line of semis that wouldn't have looked out of place on the TV soap Brookside. Rolling by in his Lamborghini or Bugatti or any other of his fleet of supercars. Puffing a cigar and adjusting his Michael Corleone sunglasses. Beating his tattooed chest at the red light.

Tate, who likes to call himself Top G (in street slang G stands for gangster), says he's done nothing wrong. He might look and behave like a gangster. He might have boasted of gangsterish pursuits and claim to have made billions. But now, as a current guest of the Romanian penal system, he says he's not an actual gangster at all. He says he's a good guy.

His arrest on 29 December by armed members of Romania's anti-corruption unit - the ones who arrest gangsters - was over allegations of people trafficking and rape. Officers wearing balaclavas stormed Tate's compound by cover of night, and say they found guns, knives and large sums of cash. Top G and his younger brother, 34-year-old Tristan, were led away in handcuffs. Two Romanian women, Georgiana Naghel, and a former police officer called Alexandra Luana Radu, were also detained. The four are suspected of being part of a human trafficking group, although they say they are innocent.

I'm on my way to Andrew Tate's home. I'd never heard of Tate until last summer. I usually cover wars, international crises, old-school corruption. Tate sounded like another self-obsessed attention screecher on social media. "He's not," said a colleague. "He's one of the most Googled people on the internet. He gets more views on social media than Rihanna. Oh, and he told a Twitch Stream that he's the world's first trillionaire."

But how could that be true? How does a former kickboxer from Luton convert notoriety on social media into his claimed Musk-scale wealth? And more pressingly, for Tate at least, what will the Romanian investigators discover about his money-making activities? If he is found guilty, he could be detained in a Romanian jail for the best part of 20 years.

Andrew Tate is a social media phenomenon. His content on TikTok has been viewed more than 12.7bn times. No one else on the platform comes close. He claims to have mastered the social media algorithms that sends posts ripping through cyberspace like a plague. He is a master of buzzwords, hashtags, soundbites and inflammatory language.

His career didn't begin online - he was a kickboxer. A successful one. In 2009, he was ranked number one in his division in Europe. Commentators squawked about his "multilayered techniques" and "sharp punches to the body". But by 2016 Tate had left the ring and entered another pugilistic arena, Big Brother. He appeared to be a born provocateur: "I don't care if nobody likes me," he told the other contestants. "I know I'm the most intelligent person in the house. Fact!"

Andrew Tate in the gym in 2021. Photograph: @Cobratate/Twitter

A few days later, Tate was thrown out after footage emerged of him beating an ex-girlfriend with a belt (although both Tate and the woman deny abuse and say the clip showed consensual sex). It's since come to light that he was also being investigated by Hertfordshire police over allegations of rape. In 2019, the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to pursue the allegations.

Tate moved on. He set up a webcam business in the UK, streaming live sex shows featuring women he recruited. He grew his brand on social media, becoming Tate the "alpha male" influencer. He railed against radical feminism and declared that young men needed to seize back their masculinity. "Life is war," he said. "It's a war for the female you want. It's a war for the car you want. It's a war for the money you want. It's a war for the status. Masculine life is war!"

Young, disaffected men began to follow him in their droves. They wanted more. Tate responded by ramping up the controversy. On social media, he talked about beating women, about grabbing them by the neck. Then in 2017, he declared that women who were raped bear some of the responsibility. Unsurprisingly, he was banned from all the major social media platforms in 2022.

In the last couple of years, it is Tate's followers, not the man himself, who have helped to grow his presence on TikTok. They come from all social classes, creeds and countries. Having publicly converted to Islam in October last year, Tate was recently seen carrying a copy of the Qur'an to court in Romania, boosting his popularity among young Muslim men. Schools in the UK are so concerned about Tate's radicalisation of their students that teachers are being given guidance on how to combat his misogynistic views.

Tate's digital army of followers say his arrest in Romania is a setup, orchestrated by what they call "the Matrix" - a worldwide conspiracy of mainstream media and politicians who are trying to silence and control him. I'm part of the Matrix. You probably are, too. Anyone who thinks Tate's brand of violent misogyny is a bad thing is part of the Matrix. "The Matrix has attacked me," Tate tweeted after his arrest, "but they misunderstand, you cannot kill an idea."

Undermining the protestations of his vast global fanbase (Tate fans took to the streets in Athens to protest his innocence) and doing little to help Tate's defence are the bizarrely self-incriminating social media lectures that he has made over the years. Possibly useful when trying to burnish his gangster credentials for a credulous online audience, but less so when faced with a real-world Romanian prosecutor trying to prove you are involved in organised crime.

When Tate first arrived in Romania six years ago, aged 30, he was asked why he chose to relocate. "I like eastern Europe as a whole," he said, "because corruption is far more accessible." In the UK, he mused, only those of high status get away with crimes, implying that Romania was open to all.

Pushing through the gears, he then complained about how rape allegations in the UK were pursued a little too vigorously for his tastes - perhaps a reference to his own experience. "In western legal systems," he said, "whether England, America, or any of them, if a girl says something she needs zero proof ... and they will come and arrest you. It's insanity and I thought, I can't live under this system any more, so I had to move somewhere with common-sense rules."

Those common-sense rules have led the Romanian prosecutor to keep Tate and his brother behind bars in what they call "preventive custody" to stop them fleeing, tampering with witnesses or igniting some kind of Trump-esque disruption at the Romanian courtrooms. The pair can be kept until the end of June. Then they must be released or put on trial. Romania has no jury system. If they are put on trial, judges will decide their fate.

The Romanian legal system has never experienced such global scrutiny, and the Tate brothers are already invoking the Matrix as the cause of all this. Leaving a failed appeal hearing in January, Tristan shouted to waiting camera: "Ask the politicians, ask the judges, you're getting closer to the truth."

'm driving towards Tate's pad, listening to a recording of him from a post that appeared on Twitter. It's a tutorial, of sorts, delivered at a gallop in a mangled American-Luton accent: Tate was born in the US, his parents emigrating to the UK when he was about five. His father, Emory, was a trailblazing African American chess champion who died suddenly during a tournament in 2015. His mother used to work as a catering assistant in Luton and is now said to be in Kentucky, staying with Tate's sister, a lawyer. Tate himself claims to have been a chess prodigy. I continue to listen to the recording as things take an ugly turn. "There's no such thing," he says, "as having girls who work for you who you've not fucked. It's impossible. You have to fuck them, and they have to love you. It's essential to the business, because otherwise women have no loyalty."

Tate speaks about curing low self-esteem in young men - undoubtedly an issue - and tells his online audience to rise early, train at the gym, build their bodies and minds, push themselves to find self-actualisation. He says they'll achieve nothing by sitting in front of their screens all day (I know - that's where they're watching him), and talks fiercely about the need to "suffer" in order to succeed, a reference to the years he spent in the kickboxing ring, where he says he saw people die.

The tutorial has moved on. Tate wants to teach his devotees how to recruit women into the webcam industry to feature in sexual content for which viewers pay between $2 and $10 a minute. Some receive a lot more. Romania has the biggest webcam industry in Europe - reputedly employing around 200,000 women - likely another reason Tate chose Bucharest as his home.

Tate's voice fills my car. He's explaining how to recruit women who are reluctant to undress in front of camera. "If you're on dates and you try to mention [the webcam business], shit, it doesn't work, it puts them off. You continue as normal," he says. "No mention of webcam. You fuck the girl, after you've fucked the girl ... then you start mentioning things like, 'You're always busy at work, you can come and work for me.'"

To close the deal, you should take her out to dinner with a webcam girl already in your employ who will help turn the screw. "Martinis, martinis, martinis," he says, clinking imaginary glasses, "bang, threesome ... put both girls on camera together the first day, give them a bottle of vodka." The money will come pouring in, he says, and they'll be hooked. "That's how you recruit girls," he says emphatically. "You can't recruit girls any other way."

You can imagine Tate's legal team hearing the recording for the first time. It sounds like textbook psychological coercion. Tricking a woman into thinking she's your girlfriend, then pressuring her to strip in front of a camera. In Romania, the authorities accuse him of the "loverboy" method. In the UK, it sounds like what we would call grooming.

We pull up on a patch of waste ground beside Tate's home in the Pipera district of Bucharest, a mix of aspirational new villas and ugly post-communist blocks. Stray dogs bark in the distance. The gate is suitably masculine: heavy, black and sliding. The door into the compound looks like it might be bomb proof. Tate's not there of course, but two of his heavies dressed in black suits patrol a modest pool, where I've seen Tate posing shirtless in online images.

Go around the side and you realise Tate's home is less Hollywood hideaway and more like a rundown meat factory. Faux brickwork, dripping gutters, dark windows. There's a pile of rubble where you'd expect the garden to be, and a broken Ikea lamp. Given the billionaire hype, and his regular postings about his private jets, ocean-going yachts, and his fleet of supercars, Tate's residence is somewhat underwhelming.

There are plenty of exclusive neighbourhoods in Bucharest, crammed with beautiful villas. They're equipped with tennis courts and pool houses and staff quarters, and they cost millions. If Tate really has the wealth he says he does, why doesn't he live in Primaverii (Ceaușescu's former neighbourhood), Kiselev, or Dorobanti? His followers say he needs to be "in hiding" in his weird lair to keep a low profile. But there are plenty of mafiosi in Bucharest who live in smart neighbourhoods and keep a low profile by not blurting out their every move on the internet or acting like "gangsters".

With one of the supercars that have been seized by the Romanian police. Photograph: @Cobratate/Twitter

Around the corner, on the Brookside estate, we're told that Tate rents a semi for some of his webcam performers. We wander across, stumbling through a sodden building site. The house is neat, whitewashed, and in better order than Tate's, although its jarringly small windows make it look like a custody centre. On the porch is a young woman.

Jasmina is a Romanian in her mid-20s, pretty and charming. She has a lot of tattoos. One, on her arm, says "Tate". Others are branded in a similar way: "Tate's girl" or "Tate's property". We meet a second woman the following day at the same address. She is branded too.

An ex-girlfriend of Tate's in the UK claims she was manipulated by him. "Sophie" doesn't want her real name out there because Tate's followers can get quite nasty online. She says Tate first contacted her on Facebook. "There were no red flags at all in the beginning," she says. "He just took an interest in my day-to-day life, wanted to know what I was into, what made me happy." Sophie flew to Bucharest without ever having met Tate, excited about seeing her new boyfriend. She lived in the house with Tate and his brother. After a while, she says, Tate raised the issue of webcam work. "You should do it, you'd make a fortune - but if you don't want to, you don't have to." Then she says the pressure started. "If you love me, you'd do it. If you care about me, you would do it."

Sophie had done some modelling and pole dancing before, so she wasn't a complete stranger to this world. It's probably why he approached her in the first place. But she went to Bucharest to be Tate's girlfriend, and fell in love with him. Then she says he started chipping away at her.

In the end, she agreed to the webcam work. She says she was under Tate's spell. She would have done anything to win his approval. Sophie had never seen his online tutorial on how to convince women to perform on webcams.

One day, she says, he pinned her to the wall and slapped her hard. On another occasion, during rough sex, she says he strangled her until she passed out. Sophie is now assisting the Romanian prosecutor with the investigation. She is the first British complainant, and you can understand why she's worried about a backlash.

The two branded women we meet at Tate's rented house have been with him for years. They are both being treated as victims by the prosecutor, but both say they're not victims at all. "I've never seen [either] of them being aggressive or rude. They've always respected people," Jasmina told Romanian TV station Antena 1. Seemingly unaware of the possibility of psychological coercion, she told reporters: "The girls were never deprived of their freedom ... the door was always open."

If Tate is to be believed, his webcam business was extremely fruitful. He told a podcast that, at its height, he had 75 women working for him in four different locations, making him $600,000 a month. We found two of them in Bucharest. An insider at the Romanian prosecutor's office said they certainly didn't find the 75 webcammers that Tate claims.

n the centre of Bucharest is a former shopping mall converted to offices. On the sixth floor is Best Studios, one of the biggest and most successful webcam outfits in the city, with around 200 women on its books. One of its bosses, Maria Boroghina, shows me around the 40 or so bedrooms where large beds await the day's activities. Smartly dressed in an expensive silk blouse, her hair cropped and bleached blond, she is a former webcam model herself, and made $20,000 a month back in 2012. Now in her late 30s, she's the operations manager and travels the world representing Romania's webcam industry, attending summits in Colombia and Portugal.

Maria knows everyone in the industry. Does she know Tate? Not until she saw his arrest on television. Is it possible he could have earned tens of millions from the webcam industry? "Oh!" she says, puzzled. "If he claims that, I would like him to come and train me, because we are not able to do that." Then, more firmly. "It's not realistic in this industry to win that much money with just a few models."

Tate goading Greta Thunberg on Twitter. Photograph: Twitter

There are many more Tate companies, though. Perhaps he earned his trillion elsewhere. As we make calls to the company records office, we stop at a smart Bucharest coffee shop. Well-heeled teenage boys have congregated from a prestigious local high school. Have they heard of Tate? There is a rush of excitement. "The Top G!" A 16-year-old with a bookish air takes charge. "We love Andrew Tate," he says, smiling. "He teaches us important lessons about life and things that we are not taught at school."

Like what?

"Like how to act when you want to set up a business."

Now, for the sake of completeness, there is more to Tate's teaching than threesomes and vodka. Some of his site's business advice is relatively orthodox. But it's difficult to get beyond the misogyny.

I ask if they think bullying women is OK. "It depends on the girl really," someone shouts. There's laughter and a few whoops. "If you find an educated girl, then he won't [bully] that girl ... but if you talk to a whore ... " The boy shrugs his shoulders and gives me a knowing grin.

omania is my spiritual home. I met my wife in Bucharest nearly 30 years ago. Back then, intolerance of all sorts was rife. Homosexuality could land you in jail. There has been huge progress, particularly since the country joined the EU in 2007. But traditional views on gender roles remain. It's not unusual, or offensive to most, to be told that a woman's place is in the home rearing children. Wives cook; husbands are fed. Men are expected to be tough and protective, and to look like men. Long hair is not much liked.

Sexual offences have not traditionally been a priority for the Romanian courts. Neither has human trafficking. Particularly if the accused is of high social status and the female complainant is not. That's changing. But would the Romanian authorities have been pursuing this so assiduously if the Tate brothers' first complainant had been a poor Romanian woman?

In fact, she was a US citizen. In April 2022, the brothers' mansion was raided by police following a tipoff from the US embassy that a 21-year-old American woman was being held against her will. Police officers took the brothers away for questioning. They were soon released, but the raid and the information gathered were the catalyst for the brothers' arrests just after Christmas.

Being led away after the raid on his home in Bucharest, Romania, in December 2022. Photograph: AP

In Bucharest, we're still following the money. And casinos are in the frame because Top G says he owns a chain of them. It's a natural fit for Tate. "The story is," he tells his followers in a video clip, "there were three brothers, mafia guys (naturally) who owned 400 casinos across eastern Europe. I went to them ... " He claims he got involved. Made a fortune. Designed a business model.

Tate says he owns a chain of 15 casinos and that they earn him $1m a month. Well, apparently not, according to the company records in Bucharest. We search high and low, and find no evidence that he owns a single casino. Not of the Bond and martini variety, at any rate. There is a weak historical link to a chain that operates slot-machine arcades, end-of-the-pier stuff. Yes, they're known as casinos in Romania. But they're not. That company is currently under investigation for alleged extortion and organised crime involving the Romanian mafia.

Tate has spoken before about owning some arcades in Romania in a business arrangement with the slot-machine arcades company. His tactic at one was to divert queues from a neighbouring Starbucks. He'd offer free coffee to tempt people inside, and they'd shove their lunch money into his one-armed bandits. Enterprising. But enough to earn him $1m a month?

Curiously, shortly after the police knocked on Tate's door in April last year, it seems he offloaded a Romanian company called Groundbreaking Developments, a consultancy for business and management, and put it into the name of a woman who was later arrested as part of the same trafficking case. The company was transferred again to another woman, who turns out to be a pornographic actor from Grimsby. It has now been moved to Dubai, and we can't see how much remains in its accounts.

It's tough to find out how much Tate's Romanian companies are actually worth. We can find tax returns for only one: Talisman Enterprises, listed as a web portal business. That has £1.2m of debt.

I tweeted about Tate's finances recently, suggesting he may not have as much money as advertised. It received 2.3m hits and colourful responses from young men wearing Maga baseball caps. They thought they could detect the hand of the Matrix. I was called a moron, parasite, fake journalist and much worse.

One Tate business venture stands out as the likely source of his income. (It's not as if Tate is on the breadline; something must explain the €3.6m worth of supercars and watches the Romanians say they seized from his home.) In 2021, Tate set up something called Hustlers University, which promised financial freedom through online tutorials with professors who are "world class multimillionaire experts". The website looks like a Vin Diesel film. Explosions. Fireballs. Drifting Ferraris. But when you get into the meat of it, there appears to be some sound investment advice. The lecturers look like Bond villains. But they're at Hustlers University. What do you expect? One has his face pixelated.

Hustlers University had an unorthodox recruitment method. Students were paid a cut of the subscription fee for any new student they managed to bring in. That provided Tate with a highly incentivised sales force overnight. If you think it sounds like a pyramid scheme, you wouldn't be the first. Tate says it's not.

Subscriptions cost $49.99 month. Tate claims he had more than 100,000 students. That seems a little far-fetched - one student said it was more like 30,000. But even that would have made Tate rich. Hustlers University has effectively rebranded and opened again as The Real World.

If Tate really does have immense wealth, I'm struggling to find it. There is one place we haven't been able to look though, and that's the blockchain. Tate regularly talks up crypto on social media, and in an October 2022 podcast he told listeners that he flipped a $600,000 bitcoin investment from March 2020, turning it into a $12m profit.

He does seem to have at least one digital wallet, but we can't look inside. Romanian law enforcement can't either, but they can track any transactions in or out. There's legal precedent, at least, for them to freeze whatever's there.

ack at Tate's Bucharest compound, the supercars have long gone, seized by the authorities in connection with the investigation into alleged human trafficking. A neighbour wanders by loaded with shopping. "They've never done any wrong," he says, gesturing at Andrew Tate's home. "It's the politicians behind all of this. They're trying to stop him getting to his money." Tate would doubtless agree.

He and his brother are not likely to be home for a while. The courts have until the end of June to start a trial or release them. An insider in the Romanian prosecutor's office said they expect a trial to begin earlier than that, at which point the Tate brothers will be moved from a holding centre to a penitentiary, where conditions will likely be more severe. And the mood music isn't good. The judge extended their detention in January referring to the brothers' "capacity and effort to exercise permanent psychological control over the victims ... including by resorting to constant acts of violence".

If convicted, it's possible they could be looking at many years in a Romanian jail. Tate, a man created in cyberspace, would see his money reduced to binary code locked in a virtual wallet that no human can reach.
Andrew Tate did not respond to a request to comment for this article.

Update added on 15 February 2023: A spokesperson for Andrew Tate contacted the Guardian after publication to say that Tate denies all the allegations made against him.

Paul Kenyon is a journalist and author of the book Children of the Night: the Strange and Epic Story of Modern Romania. His team's investigation into Tate, Living With Andrew Tate, is available on BBC File on 4 and BBC Sounds.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The truth about Andrew Tate: 'His home is less Hollywood hideaway, more rundown meat factory'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ndrew Tate used to cruise along these scruffy suburban streets about 10 miles from the centre of Bucharest in Romania. Past a litter dump and a sprawling cemetery and a line of semis that wouldn't have looked out of place on the TV soap Brookside.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Understanding the issues and risks

Schools are increasingly concerned about the impact of online influencers that promote misogynistic rhetoric. This content can be permissive of: discriminatory behaviours and attitudes (including racist, antisemitic, homophobic, transphobic, and misogynistic attitudes); sexual harassment and abuse; abuse in relationships; and victim-blaming narratives.

The entry point for young people's first engagement with such content can often seem quite superficial, but social media algorithms can then lead them to increasingly problematic and extreme content.

This all comes at an age when young people may be particularly insecure and vulnerable to persuasive narratives. For example, much of this content taps into insecurities about body image and agency. The focus on money, success and power also plays on financial and status insecurities that may lead to risky and even illegal behaviours.

Women and girls in particular are put at risk by narratives that normalise sexual harassment and abuse, promote unhealthy relationship behaviours and victim blaming. Similarly, the sharing of homophobic and transphobic content by some influencers can inform behaviour and attitudes towards LGBT+ young people in schools. Toxic masculinity is also harmful and restrictive to boys and men. Promoted stereotypes contribute to existing narratives that restrict and undermine help-seeking - especially in relation to mental health and emotional wellbeing. Some online spaces even direct young people towards other harmful content, including content that promotes self-harm and suicide.

In some extreme circumstances, boys can also become radicalised via involvement in forums and communities that promote and celebrate violent behaviours, including rape, child abuse and terrorist acts.

PSHE education should primarily be used as preventative education, providing a foundational understanding from an early age about healthy relationships, respect, self-esteem, digital literacy, economic wellbeing, critical thinking, and recognising and challenging negative influences. And, importantly, it should explore the links between these areas. This is crucial for safeguarding and building resistance to problematic narratives (as well as the influencers and algorithms that deliver them so effectively).

Of course, education is only one part of the solution, but it is a key part. There are essential efforts - for example through the Online Safety Bill - to make aspects of the digital landscape safer for children, but technical solutions must be complemented by human solutions that emphasise respect, equality and diversity.

Read on for advice on how to cover these issues through PSHE education, including recommended teaching resources.

Teaching about these topics safely:

Avoid focusing the lesson on specific influencers, websites or groups that promote harmful attitudes. This is important, as you cannot assume even the most popular influencers are known by all pupils. Speaking about a specific influencer or influencers might prompt suggestions from students of additional less well known influencers, and encourage those previously unaware to check them out - thereby providing a potentially inspiring role model and affecting how advertising and algorithms influence their future viewing. Speaking in general terms also helps pupils to understand that this advice applies to any problematic influencers in future, not just those currently causing concern.

This should be delivered by appropriately trained, prepared teachers using safe, effective materials: Anyone teaching this complex content should be given the training and pedagogical understanding to teach it safely and well.

Establish a safe learning environment: establishing a safe learning environment with pupils before teaching takes places is crucial.

Relevant guidance and training:

Addressing these issues through KS1 and KS2 PSHE education

Tips for laying the foundations at key stages 1 and 2:

With younger pupils, the aim is to develop respectful attitudes by focusing on learning that supports inclusion and belonging rather than covering specific types of discrimination, such as misogyny.

At key stage 1 this might include exploring how everyone is equal and deserves to be treated with respect. Also, recognising and celebrating people's similarities and differences.

This may extend to learning about stereotypes in early key stage 2, including gender stereotypes and how these can be unfair.

Then at upper key stage 2, pupils could explore how these stereotypes can have negative effects on a person's behaviour, aspirations, and feelings about themselves.

Teaching should also reflect younger children's early experiences online and begin to develop digital literacy skills to identify trusted sources, false information, and negative influences.

This will all help to prepare pupils for more specific learning about discrimination (including discrimination based on gender) in the later primary years and in secondary school, as they access digital platforms with increasing independence.

Statutory guidance at primary phase:

These topics are included in the DfE statutory Relationships and Health Education guidance for KS1 and KS2 as follows:

Relationships education
Respectful relationships

the importance of respecting others, even when they are very different from them (for example, physically, in character, personality or backgrounds), or make different choices or have different preferences or beliefs.

that in school and in wider society they can expect to be treated with respect by others, and that in turn they should show due respect to others, including those in positions of authority.

what a stereotype is, and how stereotypes can be unfair, negative or destructive.

Online relationships

that people sometimes behave differently online, including by pretending to be someone they are not.

that the same principles apply to online relationships as to face-to face relationships, including the importance of respect for others online including when we are anonymous.

how to critically consider their online friendships and sources of information including awareness of the risks associated with people they have never met.

how to report concerns or abuse, and the vocabulary and confidence needed to do so.

Health education
Internet safety and harms

why social media, some computer games and online gaming, for example, are age restricted.

that the internet can also be a negative place where online abuse, trolling, bullying and harassment can take place, which can have a negative impact on mental health.

how to be a discerning consumer of information online including understanding that information, including that from search engines, is ranked, selected and targeted.

where and how to report concerns and get support with issues online

Developing this learning through PSHE education at key stages 3, 4 and 5/post-16:

Statutory RSHE can help schools to address this as part of their wider PSHE education curriculum as it addresses a range of topics, including treating each other respectfully; online and media influences; identifying discrimination; and seeking support, including in relation to radicalisation.

While the statutory guidance does not extend to post-16 settings, schools and colleges are encouraged to support students by offering these subjects. The PSHE education Programme of Study outlines what can be covered at key stage 5/post-16.

The statutory RSHE guidance gives schools an outline of what they need to cover, and the important knowledge that pupils should acquire, but PSHE education must also equip pupils with the skills and attributes to apply this understanding in the real world.

The PSHE education Programme of Study (KS1-5) and Programme Builders exemplify how to integrate the statutory content into a comprehensive PSHE education programme.

Statutory guidance at secondary phase:

These topics are included in the DfE statutory Relationships, Sex and Health Education guidance for KS3 and 4 as follows:

Relationships & Sex education
Respectful relationships, including friendships

how stereotypes, in particular stereotypes based on sex, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or disability, can cause damage (e.g. how they might normalise non-consensual behaviour or encourage prejudice).

that in school and in wider society they can expect to be treated with respect by others, and that in turn they should show due respect to others, including people in positions of authority and due tolerance of other people's beliefs

the legal rights and responsibilities regarding equality (particularly with reference to the protected characteristics as defined in the Equality Act 2010) and that everyone is unique and equal

Online and media

their rights, responsibilities and opportunities online, including that the same expectations of behaviour apply in all contexts, including online

about online risks, including that any material someone provides to another has the potential to be shared online and the difficulty of removing potentially compromising material placed online

what to do and where to get support to report material or manage issues online

the impact of viewing harmful content

The statutory guidance also requires that young people are made aware of 'relevant legal provisions when relevant topics are being taught', including:

violence against women and girls

extremism/radicalisation

hate crime

Health education
Mental wellbeing
how to critically evaluate when something they do or are involved in has a positive or negative effect on their own or others' mental health
Internet safety and harms

the similarities and differences between the online world and the physical world, including: the impact of unhealthy or obsessive comparison with others online (including through setting unrealistic expectations for body image), how people may curate a specific image of their life online, over-reliance on online relationships including social media, the risks related to online gambling including the accumulation of debt, how advertising and information is targeted at them and how to be a discerning consumer of information online.

how to identify harmful behaviours online (including bullying, abuse or harassment) and how to report, or find support, if they have been affected by those behaviours.

Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2022 statutory guidance

The statutory KCSIE guidance stresses that 'schools and colleges play a crucial role in preventative education' and that this is most effective in the context of a whole school approach that 'creates a culture of zero tolerance for sexism, misogyny/misandry, homophobia, biphobic and sexual violence/harassment'.

Regarding the curriculum, KCSIE outlines the importance of 'a planned programme of evidence-based RSHE delivered in regularly timetabled lessons and reinforced throughout the whole curriculum' and that 'such a programme should be fully inclusive and developed to be age and stage of development appropriate'.

KCSIE lists the areas of statutory RSHE of key importance to safeguarding. These are also particularly relevant to addressing toxic masculinity and misogyny in the classroom:

healthy and respectful relationships

boundaries and consent

stereotyping, prejudice and equality

body confidence and self-esteem

how to recognise an abusive relationship, including coercive and controlling behavior

the concepts of - and laws relating to - sexual consent, sexual exploitation, abuse, grooming, coercion, harassment, rape, domestic abuse, so called 'honour'-based violence such as forced marriage and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), and how to access support, and

what constitutes sexual harassment and sexual violence and why these are always unacceptable

The KCSIE guidance also reminds us that all schools are subject to the Prevent duty, meaning they must have: 'due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism' and that 'The Prevent duty should be seen as part of schools' and colleges' wider safeguarding obligations'. KCSIE advises that 'designated safeguarding leads (and deputies) and other senior leaders in schools should familiarise themselves with the revised Prevent duty guidance : for England and Wales, especially paragraphs 57-76, which are specifically concerned with schools (and also covers childcare)'.

Teaching resources and related learning

Teaching about consent and healthy relationship behaviours counters messages that normalise unhealthy relationship behaviours. See:

This teaching should be linked to learning about mental health and emotional wellbeing in both primary and secondary phase, as influencers prey upon young people, with challenges relating to their self-esteem and mental health. See:

Some influencers combine discriminatory content with messaging about the importance of acquiring wealth and material possessions. This messaging is often aimed at those experiencing or concerned about unemployment or financial difficulties. It is therefore important to ensure that the economic wellbeing aspects of your PSHE education curriculum help young people to recognise pathways to careers, identify strategies to support their financial wellbeing in the future and to challenge economic misinformation presented by influencers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Addressing misogyny, toxic masculinity and social media influence in PSHE education

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Advice for schools on addressing the impact of online influencers who promote misogynistic rhetoric and other discriminatory behaviours and attitudes.

# data[].attributes.body
We have created a portal of lots of different resources available and tried to organise them by theme including social medial, sexting/youth produced sexual imagery etc.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On the 5 th February 2022 the BBC ran a significant news story entitled 'Children's mental health: Huge rise in severe cases, BBC analysis reveals'. The report highlighted the staggering statistic that there had been a 77% rise in the number of students needing specialist treatment for a severe mental health issues. The article noted that 409,347 young people (under 18) had been referred to the NHS in England for specialist care due to suicidal ideation or self-harm.

The big question is why?

We may well be answering this for generations as we unpack and unravel the impact of COVID-19 on societal structures and neuro-development. However, often talked about, in the media and in staff rooms up and down the country, is the impact of social media. Is this what has spurred on the rise in mental health concerns amongst young people since 1999?

At first glance it seems logical. The social media explosion, beginning with Facebook (although many will argue Bebo and MySpace) and then spanning into Twitter, SnapChat, TikTok, Instagram and beyond correlates in timing. Matt Hancock , back in 2019, gave a speech which both linked mental health problems and social media whilst acknowledging it was too early to make a definitive link. Research from the Education Policy Institute and The Prince's Trust in January 2021 argued that social media has a negative impact on mental wellbeing and in particular self-esteem, which often led to feelings of depression and hopelessness. The Wall Street Journal in September 2021 went as far as saying that Facebook knew that Instagram is 'toxic for teenage girls'.

Is it too simple to make this link however? Stuart Ritchie found that the Wall Street Journal's analysis above has shown correlations not causal relationships. He argued that whilst it could be that Instagram made young people's mental health worse, it could also be that young people with poor mental health are more likely to use social media. This may be because they feel more isolated, are searching for validation or social interaction.

This is a debate which will rage for years. However, there are some points worth noting -

1. Social media has been used more and more as a tool in bullying. An Office for National Statistics report found that 'around one in five children aged 10 to 15 years in England and Wales (19%) experienced at least one type of online bullying behaviour in the year ending March 2020, equivalent to 764,000 children.' This must have an impact on mental health and wellbeing as it is invasive, can happy in a child's safe space and at any time of the day or night.

2. Early peer reviewed papers, such as this one by Braghieri et al. (2021), show that social media does appear to increase mental health problems. They noted that the roll out of Facebook at a college increased symptoms of poor mental health, led to worse academic results and led to an increase in use of mental health services.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Young people's mental health, social media and myth busting - Minds Ahead

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On the 5 th February 2022 the BBC ran a significant news story entitled 'Children's mental health: Huge rise in severe cases, BBC analysis reveals'. The report highlighted the staggering statistic that there had been a 77% rise in the number of students needing specialist treatment for a severe mental health issues.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Pixabay

Are you a doom scroller or a frequent Tweeter? Do you pass the time by flicking endlessly through others' posts on social networking sites, or perhaps you use these platforms to share your own content? Psychologists believe our style of social media usage has important effects on our psychological wellbeing, but we've struggled to measure people's online behaviour accurately - until now.

It's estimated that more than 4 billion people use social media worldwide, which is expected to rise to a staggering 6 billion by 2027. Although many people consider social media to be a good thing, helping us to connect with vast social networks, others argue that replacing meaningful, real-world interactions with virtual ones is having negative effects on our mental health.

This has sparked an explosion of research on the topic, which has begun to show that the way people engage with social media might be more important than how much they use it. To investigate the different ways in which people use social media, researchers have created numerous questionnaires that ask people about their online behaviour.

While this research has revealed potential categories of user, it remains unclear what effects these different engagement styles have on our psychological wellbeing. This is likely due to a fundamental problem with questionnaires designed to assess behaviour: how we think we behave can often be very different to how we actually act.

Introducing a new tool

Rather than asking people how they use social media, we developed a tool to measure their actual behaviour, the Social Networking Site Behaviour Task (SNSBT). In an online study, we asked 526 adults across the globe to engage with the SNSBT.

First, we told each person they would be connected to a network of 99 other "friends" on a new social networking platform, and they would see images posted by other members of that network. In response to each image, people could do one of three things.

They could either press "next" to scroll through the images, like it (with a heart icon), or share it with the rest of the network, which prompted comments from other "friends". Everyone was told that not all members of the network were "friends" with every other member, so shared images would be seen by some people for the first time.

After responding to 120 images, which took approximately 30 minutes, people completed four questionnaires that asked them about their thoughts and feelings towards their social lives. How lonely they felt, their feelings of connectedness and belonging to real (physical) social networks, and the amount of emotional support they felt they got from their online networks.

It's not what you do, it's the way you do it

We analysed people's behaviour on the SNSBT with a technique that allowed us to identify groups of people with similar styles of behaviour during the task. This revealed three distinct groups:

Passive users pressed next on 85% of images. They showed a preference to scroll through the content posted by other members of the network.

Reactive users also scrolled content, pressing next on 59% of images, but they pressed like on just over a third of the images (compared to just 13% in passive users).

Interactive users pressed like half the time, but also shared 20% of the images - considerably more than passive (1%) and reactive users (5%).

The groups also reported different feelings towards their social lives. Although they did not differ in their experiences of loneliness, interactive users said they felt more connected to their physical networks and experienced more emotional support from their online networks compared to passive users. Reactive users sat in the middle.

Where do we go from here?

So, what does this all mean? Will you feel worse about your social life if you continue to doom scroll and better about it if you start liking and sharing posts? Maybe, but not necessarily. Although we found differences between the groups in people's feelings towards their social lives, we can't say their usage styles caused these differences because we found other factors that might play a role.

For instance, interactive users said they had larger online social networks than passive users. This makes sense, right? How can you feel socially connected if you have nobody to connect with? Also, while there were equal numbers of males and females in the passive group, there were more females in the reactive and more males in the interactive groups. It wasn't clear why.

What this study does show is our relationship with social media is far more complex than we might have thought. It's not as simple as asking whether the time we spend on social media is good or bad for us, because the answer might depend on how we use it. The SNSBT is one of the first tools that is allowing us and other researchers to measure this directly.

The Conversation is commissioning articles by academics across the world who are researching how society is being shaped by our digital interactions with each other. Read more here

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Your style of social media use may be connected to your wellbeing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A new experimental task reveals distinct styles of engagement on social networking sites associated with different perceptions of social connectedness.

# data[].attributes.headline
Ofcom: Children and parents - media use and attitudes report 2022

# data[].attributes.subject
Ofcom: Children and parents - media use and attitudes report 2022

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This report looks at media use, attitudes and understanding among children and young people aged 3-17.

It also includes findings on parents' views about their children's media use, and how parents of children and young people aged 3-17 monitor and manage their children's use. The report is intended to provide a comprehensive picture of children's media experiences in 2021 as a reference for industry, policymakers, academics and the general public.

The Communications Act 2003 places a responsibility on Ofcom to promote, and to carry out research into, media literacy. We define media literacy as 'the ability to use, understand and create media and communications in a variety of contexts'. This report forms part of our wider Making Sense of Media programme.
Children and parents: media use and attitudes report 2022 (PDF, 5.7 MB) Plant a Rhieni: Adroddiad ar Agweddau a Defnydd o Gyfryngau 2020/2021 (PDF, 2.3 MB) Annex 1: Sources and methodologies (PDF, 196.1 KB) Annex 2: Children who may be classed as vulnerable (PDF, 381.4 KB) Children and parents: media use and attitudes report 2022 - interactive data

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Children and parents: media use and attitudes report 2022

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This report looks at media use, attitudes and understanding among children and young people aged 3-17. It also includes findings on parents' views about their children's media use, and how parents of children and young people aged 3-17 monitor and manage their children's use.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Don't say 'just don't go online' because adults wouldn't do that if something happened in the real world. If you got followed home, it's not like [they would say]: "Hey, stop leaving the house." Help the person understand that it wasn't their fault and try to help them through it - be a shoulder to cry on, but don't try and affect their social life personally. (15-year-old girl)

Young people are often reluctant to involve adults in their online lives. Many fear that parents and teachers will misunderstand or "overreact" in response to what they mostly regard as normal, unproblematic behaviour and experiences. Others say they are frustrated by adults who "trivialise" their experiences.

Over the past eight years, I have had extensive discussions with (mainly) teenagers from a diverse range of social and economic backgrounds, ethnicities, sexual orientations and genders about their experiences of social media and messaging apps. A lot of those I speak to initially try to downplay any issues. They make it clear they like being online and know how to handle any problems that may come up.

But when I ask them to tell me more about these problems - while remaining neutral and interested rather than appearing judgmental - it's almost like the floodgates open. They want to talk about the things they don't like and struggle with; they just worry that they'll get into trouble if they are too honest.

Some describe a relentless stream of abuse and hate that can "ruin" the experience of being online. One 14-year-old girl says there is "so much sexism, racism, homophobia" which she thinks is wrong, but at the same time just an inevitable part of being online. A 14-year-old boy discloses: "Sometimes they've been racist to me ... Racist comments [in] messages from other people."

Some LGBTQ+ girls tell me about the extent of hate they experience online:

[There's] a lot of bullying ... it's coming from both adults and other children, [even] in safe spaces. There's group chats online where people are added and it's purposely [so people can] hate them.

But they also point out that "in the real world", people don't accept their sexuality and gender identity either. Most still want to stay online despite the risks because at least there is the chance of connecting with like-minded others. Yet they often seem quite despondent about how to support each other online and challenge bad behaviour, knowing it's risky to do so.

Similarly girls, and boys too, seem almost to have to accept being sent unwanted and unsolicited sexual content as a condition of being online. "I think you just sort of keep quiet about it," one 12-year-old girl tells me, suggesting that calling out such behaviour could have awful consequences if the sender then tells their friends.

What's clear from all my discussions is that most young people regard reining in the big social media platforms as only part of the solution. They see the issues as social in nature - going beyond just being an online problem but as part-and-parcel of their wider lives. As one 14-year-old girl puts it: "It's not social media which is the issue ... it's society and how we are taught."

Legal but harmful

The content of the UK government's new Online Safety Bill is both complex and controversial. The reported removal of a section dealing with "legal but harmful" content published by the largest and "highest-risk" social media platforms has attracted widespread criticism in some quarters, but strong support among those who regard the bill - which must be finalised by the summer of 2023 - as a threat to free speech.

In theory this measure relates to adults, as children are already protected from viewing harmful material by "under 18" gateways. However, many of those criticising the removal of this section are still deeply concerned about children's ability to view legal but harmful content.

The coroner's report into the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell in November 2017 concluded that her viewing of social media content had contributed in "more than a minimal way" to her death. The senior coroner, Andrew Walker, said the material Russell had viewed "shouldn't have been available for a child to see". In response, her father Ian Russell suggested that social media firms should "think long and hard about whether their platforms are suitable for young people at all".

This story is part of Conversation Insights
The Insights team generates long-form journalism and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges.

There have been numerous other examples of young people coming to harm as a result of online experiences, including after being bullied or having sexual images shared online. According to the UK's media regulator Ofcom, more than a third of children aged eight to 17 have seen something "worrying or nasty" online in the last 12 months, while one in three lie about their age to access adult-rated content on social media. Consuming content on video-sharing platforms such as YouTube and TikTok is the most popular online activity for children, with 31% having posted content they've created, most commonly on TikTok.

Social media platforms have age restrictions but most lack robust mechanisms to enforce them - the user just has to enter a date of birth, which they can make up. The Children Commissioner's 2020 survey found that over half of children aged 11 to 13 and over a third of those aged eight to ten reported using platforms despite not being old enough.

Of course, children and young people (my term for 13 to 17-year-olds) vary a lot in how they talk about the issues and in their levels of critical awareness and digital literacy. But in this " post-digital era " where the use of social media is taken for granted by children as young as 12 and in some cases ten or younger - hearing their perspectives is a critical part of understanding how best to monitor and regulate the online landscape. In this article, children and young people talk candidly about what they think the most pressing issues are - and how they want to be supported as they navigate the risks that can arise.

Mixed messages

Everyone has perfect makeup and perfect bodies and you think: why isn't that me? (13-year-old girl)

The idea that online spaces can be fun, informative and uplifting but also fractious and divided has emerged time and again in my discussions with young people. Some girls have been quite animated telling me about the fun they have with each other sharing dances and lip syncs on TikTok "around the world", with the aim of "trending" and reaching as many viewers as possible.

Many are quite dismissive of any negative impacts, and breezily say that it's just about enjoying themselves. They maintain that online spaces can include more diverse representations and "body positive" content, while pushing back against fears over narrow concepts of beauty and overly curated lifestyles.

But they also describe seeing streams of abuse and "shaming" as they scroll through posts and comments - some of which is directed toward them personally. Girls tell me about being "hated on" including about their bodies and appearance:

The way I'm dressed: people will just tell me to go kill myself and slit my wrists but it's just something you can't escape. If someone dresses in a smaller dress or with cleavage showing, they are called a slut and told they're asking for it. However you look, you'll be made fun of for it.(15-year-old girl)

Even those who think such comments are funny or insignificant at the time can be worried about digital footprints and so-called "cancel culture":

If you said something maybe a couple of years ago ... people will bring that up now and then, like, cancel you for it. They will constantly hate on you [even if] your opinion on it has changed ... I know now from when I was young my opinions on many things have definitely changed. (15-year-old girl).

Many of the girls I speak to suggest this "toxic" environment is more of an issue for vulnerable girls who may "get anxiety" or develop an "eating disorder". But as we talk more, some admit to struggling themselves and, like this 15-year-old girl, can seem quite downbeaten by it all:

People might see someone online and compare themselves - and think they need to lose weight and start changing their eating habits. Then gradually it becomes like a routine - they start changing their eating habits and then it can sometimes become so extreme.

Among the most commonly expressed fears for young people today is that teenage girls are being exposed to relentless images of the "perfect body" and pro-diet culture messaging on social media - and that this is damaging their self-esteem and body image.

One group of 13-year-olds I speak to seem quite conflicted - they want to present themselves as "savvy" about what is and isn't real, and the way that people use social media to portray "perfection". They are perfectly aware that what they see online isn't "real" - that it constitutes the "highlights reel" of someone's life. But they also look quite despondent when talking about how it makes them feel about themselves personally:

You see a lot of people who look so pretty and perfect but it's so hard to tell because they're on social media and they could have used Photoshop or filters. And then you kind of look at yourself in the mirror and you're like, I don't look like them.

The role of adults

In my work with young people, I'm mindful of not simply listening uncritically to what they say. While I need to be non-judgmental and open-minded if I'm going to get them to open up, I also need to try to make sense of the ways that young people may themselves behave in harmful ways online, either putting themselves or others at risk.

Many of those I speak to seem to think it's just common sense that involving adults is not desirable. These 15-year-old girls explain how differences in what adults and young people think is "normal" and "acceptable" can close down dialogue:

A lot of adults have strong opinions about sharing things with other people online. If they don't approve of sharing pictures and stuff, they think that's bad - but, like, it's normal and a good way to have a good time.

I think they're not very familiar with how we use modern technology. Adults might have heard of, say, a bad incident that happened with one particular person. But I don't think that means the app generally is unsafe.

In the right environment, however, many young people do want to talk about what they see and experience online. Like this 15-year-old girl, they want to be understood and taken seriously:

If you go and tell a teacher, sometimes they might not take it seriously because it's, like: "Oh, it's on the internet - it's not affecting you in real life." [So] they don't think it's a problem.

Few appear to think the solution is coming offline altogether. Well-worn narratives of "stranger danger" shape implorations from adults to ensure social media profiles are private and that young people only speak to those online who they already know offline. Yet such advice is completely contrary to the way in which meeting new people online is, rightly or wrongly, an entirely normal way for young people to expand their social circles:

I followed mutual friends and started replying to their stories: "Oh, you look pretty, this and that." And then I got added into group chats and you had a laugh ... It's nice to get to know new people. (14-year-old girl)

During lockdown when otherwise unable to spend time with people, this 17-year-old boy says he was especially thankful for being able to meet new people online:

[During the pandemic] everybody was so far apart, it didn't really matter where someone lived ... because you couldn't see them. I got to meet a lot of people through social media that I didn't know in person.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that 30% of children aged 10-15 in England and Wales have accepted a "friend request" from someone they don't know, and 17% have spoken to or exchanged messages with someone online who they've never met in person. Around 2% say they have done so with someone they thought was their age but later found out was much older, and 5% have gone on to meet up with someone they first communicated with online.

But the interplay of risk and reward means young people don't simply want to be told not to interact with new people online. They consider this advice a "scare tactic" and seem frustrated about such messages:

School has taught us to understand the dangers but I think it comes with some kind of self-assessment when you're actually talking to them. Otherwise, if you don't add anyone and you don't get to meet new people online, then you're stuck with the people that you already know so you can't expand your social circle. (16-year-old girl)

Many young people say they feel more confident and comfortable when talking to new people online than "IRL" (in real life). Some also feel that online communication with friends provides freedom from the usual pressures and scrutiny - for example, as one 14-year-old boy confides, when developing romantic interests because "online it is more private".

But the same boy goes on to say that communicating online can be risky because "with your messages ... that information gets passed around". Many I've spoken to, both girls and boys, seem conflicted about the potential harms of using social media. But they don't want to give up the benefits just to avoid the risks.

How young people feel about sexual content

While most young people are more reluctant to talk about their experiences of sex online, this does also depend on whether they will be judged for doing anything "wrong". Once reassured, many talk quite openly about being sent unwanted and unsolicited sexual content - perhaps because they think it's not their fault and can't be told off for it.

Many seem almost resigned to being sent unwanted and unsolicited sexual content. The notorious "dick pic" - mainly sent to girls both by boys they know and, worryingly often, by older men they don't know - is something that some girls have got used to. They are often visibly frustrated, angry and disgusted by these experiences and want to get them off their chest:

On Snapchat where you add someone and before you start a conversation, they'll just send explicit photos. (15-year-old girl)

I feel like the girls have just gotten used to it [being sent dick pics], and it's really disgusting to see. (14-year-old girl)

According to the ONS, 11% of children in England and Wales aged 13-15 report having received a sexual message (69% in the form of a photo or image) in the last 12 months. Girls aged 13-15 are significantly more likely to have received sexual messages than boys (16% vs 6%).

Reporting rates are low. Young people tend to just block the sender if it's an older stranger - easy enough because "it's done with". But then, as one 14-year-old girl says: "It plays in your head for a bit [because of] the amount of times it has happened."

If it's a boy they know who has sent the message or picture, it can become complicated because of their concerns about boys "getting annoyed" if they report it and get the boy into trouble. Here, I often see more embarrassment and awkwardness - even among very young girls:

I think you just sort of keep quiet about it [and] try to avoid them ... Imagine if they go to their mates [to say you've complained] - it's really awkward. (12-year-old girl)

If they find out you reported it, they have a go at you saying: "Oh my god, you're too uptight, why would you do this to my mate?" ... And then it would go round school and I would think: "Maybe I am too uptight." (16-year-old girl)

Many girls say they have to deal with being asked for nude images - risking being abused by a boy if they say no, and shamed and ostracised by peers if they say yes and then the images are "leaked". There's the familiar double standard that boys take pleasure from these images while the girl carries the risk:

It's almost like an ego or self-confidence thing. If you were to say no to doing something then they'll pin that on you, instead of [thinking] what they did was wrong. Then they'll insult you or say something just to give themselves more confidence again. (16-year-old girl)

Ironically, some girls tell me about learning from TikTok videos how to refuse nude requests in a light-hearted way. Some describe fake boyfriend snaps as "lifesavers" - they feel that while they do not expect boys to respect them, they will respect another boy. These girls are almost laughing and joking around as they recount using these techniques, despite knowing it is a problem that they cannot just say no.

The Conversation is commissioning articles by academics across the world who are researching how society is being shaped by our digital interactions with each other. Read more here
And while it's often assumed that boys are happy to consume porn, a lot of the boys I've spoken to - aged 12 and upwards - don't like being sent this content and, like the girls, just block the senders. When I've spoken to boys about porn more generally, I have found lots of nuance and variation in their perspectives. They often want to talk at length about the confusion and insecurities they feel.

Many seem quite innocent in how they talk about what they are watching, which is a contrast from the nature of the porn they describe seeing and the regularity with which they are watching it. They are worried for themselves, it seems, but don't know how to make sense of it or where to go for help.

The role of algorithms

Many young people bemoan the social media algorithms and platform design features (also known as " affordances ") that make trying to stay in control of their online experiences so difficult. Some suspect that algorithms "elevate" the most argumentative and abusive content and exchanges, and want social media companies to do more in this regard:

Social media platforms should be more strict with people. There are all these bad comments but [the people posting them] don't get punished. (15-year-old boy)

However, many of my interviewees point out that the algorithms are "gamed" by young users, and appear fatalistic that such issues can ever be solved:

There's a setting on Twitter where you can block certain words to reduce the likelihood you might see this stuff ... but they don't count out the synonyms." (15-year-old girl)

The dynamics of "likes" and "follows" reinforces the idea of there being an agreed-upon standard for aspiration. This 13-year-old boy is almost cynical in his exasperation about how social media works:

It's a cycle. Once that person's likes rise, unless they do something really stupid or something that a large majority of their fans or followers disagree with, then they're going to keep rising. It's a bit of a cycle - it's quite subconscious: "Oh, I should like them." And then that amounts to another like and then another person says: "I wish I had got even more."

Young people think that the design of the platforms motivate people to engage in negative behaviour online to gain likes and follows. Those I speak to seem to think this is common but also annoying and unhealthy:

People like to post [school] fights in their [Snapchat] stories just to get views ... so more people see it. (15-year-old girl)

Many understand that this can promote unreliable content-sharing and "fake news", because people "want to start something big and they want everyone to be discussing it ... people can twist the headline around, make it look more eye-catching ..." (12-year-old girl)

Some say they try to make decisions about the social media they use to avoid content and people that cause problems. According to Ofcom, while most 12 to 17-year-olds are confident they can tell what is real and fake online, only 11% correctly selected the components of a social media post that were genuine, and 22% of 12 to 17-year-olds were unable to detect a fake online social media profile.

Overwhelmingly, though, most young people tell me that introducing more regulations for the major social media platforms can only ever be part of the solution for the issues they encounter. They don't just want technological solutions but broader solutions regarding the way people behave both on and offline. A 15-year-old girl talks thoughtfully about the most constructive way to deal with being sent a dick pic, saying: "If you block someone, it won't solve the bigger issue of people thinking they can still do this:

Your instant reaction would just be to remove [the sender]. But maybe instead of that, you could just be like, no it's wrong - speak up instead of just removing it ... You might be scared but once you actually do it, you'll probably feel a sense of accomplishment because you're actually helping, like you've resolved the issue and it would help a lot of other people as well. (15 year-old girl)

But many, such as this 14-year-old boy, sound fatalistic about the prospects of social media companies changing the online environment for young people:

I don't think there's anything they can really do. It's just that people need to be a bit more careful about what they're posting online on social media.

A 13-year-old girl talks about a transgender friend who is "active on social media" and experiences a lot of abuse. Her advice?

Just don't post anything ... If you want to avoid that situation, you could still have the social medias but don't post, just text friends.

While many young people think such advice is common sense, it also speaks to an unfairness in the ways that different young people have to act online to keep themselves safe. Some young people may feel shut out because they cannot be open about who they are or what they think.

An impossible situation?

Some boys I speak to think that sharing homophobic jokes in private WhatsApp groups is not a problem, although they know they might get into trouble if other people find out. One 17-year-old boy is dismissive about the significance of sharing such messages:

Some boys do extreme jokes that cross the line for homophobia. They've got into a lot of trouble [but] it's just laughed off [with friends] - it's just kind of funny. [I'm] not bothered in that respect.

But many other young people feel more targeted and at risk. A group of LGBTQ+ girls describe "a lot of bullying" coming from both adults and other young people. While some say they still feel safer online than in real life, they complain that "your online space is being negative to you as well". Ultimately, one suggests:

There's nothing [you] can do without getting made fun of at this point. No matter what you say or do, you get some form of hate for it, so you may as well just let it happen.

It seems these girls feel they have to stay online despite the risks because at least there is the chance of connecting with like-minded others who may be able to provide support. In this sense, they seem to be navigating an impossible situation, and are both angry about the risks they face but also resigned to them.

Across different aspects of online life - as with real life - pleasure and pain intersect for young people. It may be both "funny" and "dodgy" to watch an argument play out among peers online, or to send content that they may get in trouble for if unintended audiences find out. Risk-taking is a normal part of adolescence, but in the digital age it can come with consequences that may be more significant than was the case for previous generations.

Young people both want to look at aspirational content but are ambivalent about how it makes them feel about themselves. They want to connect with new people online but are tired of encountering abusive and hateful content and being sent unwanted sexual content. Boys, particularly, are drawn to pornography online but often feel confused about what they see. Known peers may be involved in risky behaviour online but it may feel compulsory, or even desirable, to take part either directly or as a witness.

Big tech cannot solve these tensions and dilemmas of adolescent life alone. Tackling them requires what is sometimes referred to as a "post-digital" approach that considers risk and harm along a continuum that spans both real and online life, rather than treating the latter as a delineated category that can be dealt with through big tech tools and regulation alone.

Young people have always bullied each other, compared themselves unfavourably with idealised cultural representations of "perfection", and explored and expressed their developing sexualities in ways that have worried the adults around them. The point is to identify how the design of social media platforms has entrenched and potentially reshaped patterns of vulnerability.

Above all, the tensions in young people's willingness to involve adults (they both want support they can trust but fear being judged and punished) need to be resolved. Conversations may need to be less concerned with eradicating a particular risk, and more with establishing a dialogue whereby young people feel able and willing to come for help when they need it. Otherwise, as this 12-year-old girl observes:
For you: more from our Insights series: To hear about new Insights articles, join the hundreds of thousands of people who value The Conversation's evidence-based news. Subscribe to our newsletter.

I think almost everything I know about social media comes from social media. [Adults] just go back to the very basics that everyone already knows. It's kind of wasting time when they could be telling us something we don't know.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Online safety: what young people really think about social media, big tech regulation and adults 'overreacting'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Most young people regard reining in the big social media platforms as only part of the solution to the 'relentless stream' of abuse and shaming they experience online