Was it in public interest to cover up the terror links to the Southport stabbings?

I think it damages every child, in particular boys. Although maybe the damage to girls is just different.

Sentencing is this morning.

This is the best article I've come across to date which gives details of all the contacts agencies did have before the incident. Stuff that hasn't come out before.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78w7nlwz9po

I don't think it "damages" every child but there are some that it does damage especially those children who are already struggling with their mental health. tbh I think most children will have viewed some porn by the time they've reached their late teens and probably before they are sexually active. It's a different world to the one I grew up in!

nanna8

I just wonder why some kids actually watch this stuff. I suspect they are already damaged. I can’t imagine any in my rather large extended family spending time hunched up over a phone or computer because they are too busy out socialising, studying or playing sport. They are not saints ,by any means, but they’d rather be out with their mates.

Because it’s there and children are curious.
Btw, my grandaughter isnt damaged and she has viewed porn.
Unfortunately she viewed it on one of my devices. And like all youngsters they think they know it all. In this case she didn’t.
She didn’t clear her serch history.

Check viewing habits of a 17 year old

Do most parents check their children's viewing habits? I don't think they do and even if they do, how do they check what their children see on other's devices? Sadly I think children's innocence is stolen from them by what they're seeing. Porn and violence becomes normalised if children are exposed to these images at a young age.

Many children know their way round technology far better than their parents. I've got older gc and having had pretty frank and worrying conversations with them about what they have seen online and what they think about it now they're older I just hope they'll be able to protect their children better than they've been protected. Fwiw middle class kids in caring home at decent school.

If he prevented something he probably didn't.
Only a guess.

It comes back to the family.
Most parents check their children's viewing habits and do their level best to prevent access to pornography and violence.
Generally the people who commit these appalling acts are left very much to their own devices, unsupervised and unchecked, or the family are already involved and don't care what their children see and hear.
I would like to know (seriously, not point scoring) if Rudakubana's father called the police after he prevented his son from setting off to his old school with a knife, and if any preventive action was taken.

Barleyfields

In what way are they deeply offensive, and to whom?

Obsessive and ill informed? There would be such an outpouring of rage if I described Labour voters in this way. In my view Reform voters are realistic, whereas Labour supporters are idealistic, but that is not meant to be offensive, as HPQ post clearly was.

It is a difficult issue as you cannot prejudice a fair trial and until this week it wasn't known if there would be a trial.

I just wonder why some kids actually watch this stuff. I suspect they are already damaged. I can’t imagine any in my rather large extended family spending time hunched up over a phone or computer because they are too busy out socialising, studying or playing sport. They are not saints ,by any means, but they’d rather be out with their mates.

The above Ofcom report, though long, makes stark reading.

This sentence (page 37) may go some way to explaining why violence is perhaps becoming ‘normalised’ for some young people:

“As has been discussed, most children, especially those aged 16+, were becoming
increasingly desensitised to the violent content they were encountering…”

The owners of the platforms should tighten up content control; instead, what have they done - removed content moderation under the guise of ‘freedom of speech’.

According to X’s policy, porn is an ‘art form’🙈

It is possible to be pro free speech and against porn, they are not the same things, in fact most of the feminists I admire are strong free speech advocates but firmly opposed to porn.

Yes I have just said I would ban smartphones for under 16s and porn, not sure what else I can do. Bluesky seems to have a very weird problem at the moment in terms of some of their trending results being awfulness.

An Ofcom report about children accessing violent content online:

www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/research-and-data/online-research/keeping-children-safe-online/experiences-of-children/understanding-pathways-to-online-violent-content-among-children.pdf?v=368021

I feel that for a free speech advocate I am banning quite a lot tonight.

I would ban all porn as well but that wouldnt go down with the progressives either.
Very few cared about Twitter and its child safeguarding problem until Musk took over which makes me fairly concerned around motives.

June 2024, X changed its rules to formally allow porn and violent content on its platform:

www.prolificnorth.co.uk/news/x-changes-rules-to-formally-allow-porn-and-violent-content-on-its-platform/

Well I would ban smartphones for under sixteen and think that will be in place in most countries within a decade.
When Musk took over Twitter he tightened up some of the rules on child safeguarding, so he extended the definition of abuse to include physical abuse, (it previously only banned sexual abuse) banned the depiction of certain images relating to children that the previous owner had allowed, and there were quite a few other bits of awfulness which were previously allowed which he stopped.

Trump has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who was sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of parole, in 2015 in connection with his ownership and operation of The Silk Road, a site dealing drugs (and God knows what else) on the dark web.

What a message to send to all the monsters out there!

That lovely little boy stabbed to death here in Birmingham yesterday wasn't in a gang or anything. He was, according to his classmates, sweet, kind, always attended lessons, never got into trouble. It seems it was a random attack. Poor kid.

Children are having access to violent images online and some are affected adversely by this. Many children who are convicted of violence are found to have searched online for these vile images

Absolutely foxie!

And yet people cheer on the tech oligarchs who do nothing to address the vile content that is twisting young minds on their platforms.

They criticise the UK government at any mention of online legislation, citing that it’s trying to stifle our freedom of speech!

Yet those same people often shout the loudest about how terrible it is when another stabbing is carried out by a young person, and how it was never this bad in the past.

What do they think it is that’s subverting the pliable, impressionable minds of young people in the 21st Century?

Perhaps Mr Musk should be addressing that In that I would support him!

HousePlantQueen

The report of today's murder are truly horrifying. The assailants in these all too frequent tragedies are getting younger and younger.

Yesterday's murder.
Stabbed after school.
He died Tuesday evening in hospital.

The report of today's murder are truly horrifying. The assailants in these all too frequent tragedies are getting younger and younger.