Children and online safety

Sir, – Carl O’Brien in his article “DCU research finds young males fed ‘toxic’ antifeminist and other extremist content within 23 minutes” (News, April 17th) notes that there was trenchant criticism at an Oireachtas Committee meeting with social media companies, with one TD quoted as saying the State does not give driving licences to 13 year olds, so why allow them access to social media sites.

A Senator further noted that it was “unforgivable that WhatsApp recently reduced its age limit to 13″.

There is a certain irony in all of this because in 2017 some of the leading, high-profile child advocacy groups dedicated to protecting children (the ISPCC, the Children’s Rights Alliance, etc) led the way in strongly arguing for the digital access age to be lowered to 13.

In view of research since 2017, and the DCU study, as well as a Prime Time programme alerting us to the unfettered, malign influence of social media sites on children, where do those organisations, who argued for lowering the digital access age to 13, now stand? – Yours, etc,