Our response to the Prime Minister's announcement ⤵️

"The doomscrolling economy is not one we need to keep participating in." From adopting "dumbphones" to deleting apps, young people are rejecting the predatory algorithms built to profit off their attention. They don't need paternalistic social media bans that cut them off from news, peer support, and digital civic life - they just need politicians that respect their agency. Read more ⤵️ theguardian.com/technology/2…

The business model of Big Tech relies on mass data extraction. Their AI models can then be deployed to predict voter behaviour, micro-target political messaging, and manipulate public debate at an unprecedented scale. At the same time, UK government departments are quietly embedding foreign-owned AI models across Whitehall without adequate transparency or democratic oversight. Democracy belongs to citizens, not algorithms.

Even Ofcom admits it. Instead of doubling down on further digital prohibition and censorship, it is time for Labour to scrap the Online Safety Act.

When progressive leaders engage in this type of performative asceticism - or ban entire age groups from accessing the news - they cede the digital public square entirely to the right. We have to be in the conversation to win the argument. Stop the moral posturing.

Labour wants to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote, but how can young people make an informed choice if the Online Safety Act censors the climate debates that shape their future? If they are mature enough to vote, they are mature enough to read about government policy.

🇫🇷 The unrest in France has been deeply concerning to witness, but what is equally chilling is how readily a Western democracy reached for backroom digital censorship to manage public crisis. Former French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal even called for temporary platform blackouts and the use of AI facial recognition on video footage. In Britain, we are following a disturbingly similar path. With police units monitoring online "protest-related activity" and the routine deployment of live facial recognition at demonstrations, we are being conditioned to accept surveillance as the price of exercising our basic democratic rights. Whether you support or oppose any particular cause or protest, these freedoms cannot be conditional. When we allow governments to suppress the digital public square under the guise of "safety" and "security", we construct a machinery of control that will eventually silence us all.

Ofcom admits there’s been "no significant change" in children encountering harmful material since the Online Safety Act came into force. The law created giant digital ID honeypots and rampant censorship - while failing to stop harm. The left fell into a Tory surveillance trap by backing content prohibition over platform accountability. Why are we now expanding a broken law into subjective topics like "depression" and "body image"? It’s time for a total rethink - which must start with Labour scrapping the Online Safety Act.

👓Meta admits its smart glasses were recording private conversations WITHOUT users even giving consent. Covert recording is the inevitable result of putting surveillance hardware on people's faces. Read more ⤵️ techspot.com/news/114214-met…