The Reader: Tech firms must protect the younger generation

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Mixed: young people need more protection online
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11 July 2019
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While we welcome action from Instagram [“Instagram update adds anti-bullying prompt after teen Molly’s death”, July 9], why is this only happening now when Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, states that it has had access to AI that detects harmful content for years?

Tech matters, and it can be a huge force for good, but its unboundaried world lets playground bullies take centre stage. We work every day with children and young people who are the casualties of a world they didn’t create. We can only hope that a younger generation will turn their backs on incivility and hate, and use all the heart and creativity their predecessors didn’t have to bring the world closer together. Innovation has been valued more highly than humanity, and in the fever of the possible, tech giants didn’t wait to get it right.

We need tech firms to admit that they messed up — to take down and start again if that is what it takes — and put a kinder, smarter generation at the forefront of change.
Lauren Seager-Smith
CEO, Kidscape

EDITOR'S REPLY

Dear Lauren,

LIFE without social media is unthinkable for most teens, but a charity survey found that 42 per cent of 12- to 20-year-old respondents who were cyberbullied said it happened on Instagram.

After the tragedy of Molly Russell, the Facebook-owned image-sharing platform has added an “Are you sure?” pre-post warning about harmful content flagged by an AI-programmed language filter.

But you are right to question why it took so long. Instagram launched in 2010 and had enough alerts about harassment cases, while this announcement is likely also trying to head off any further regulation.

But the bigger problem is how to build a kinder internet, because what’s the use of warning a troll who posts their nasty snipes anyway?

Another discussion is whether 13 is too young for a child to have an Instagram account, to suffer that pressure to display a confected grid of your “best life”.

Mark Blunden, Technology Correspondent

Business the big loser with no deal

News that our warehouses are full to overflowing with stockpiled raw materials, medicines and spare auto parts will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with modern supply chains [“Brexit stockpiles leave no room in warehouse for Christmas gifts”, July 9].

Throughout my career I have run and invested in businesses that relied on bringing raw materials into the UK and getting them processed as quickly as possible.

The kind of no-deal Brexit being considered by the Tory leadership candidates has no democratic mandate and would require checks at our borders and the imposition of tariffs, driving a coach and horses through the way thousands of businesses operate.

Macho talk about no deal rings very hollow. It is clear now that we are facing a national crisis. No one voted for job losses and shortages of essentials. The only democratic way to resolve the deadlock over Brexit and give certainty to our businesses is a People’s Vote.
Richard Reed
Co-founder, Jam Jar Investments

Give south London alternative to Tube

Two days of suspended Northern line services in morning peak hours and the ensuing chaos in south London has put into sharp relief the lack of focus by TfL and the Mayor on funding public transport alternatives to the Tube, which is desperately overcrowded [“Transport chaos as line is part-suspended in second day of disruption”, July 9].

Inner south London needs investment in bus services to central London and the City rather than cuts and fragmentation, which drives people back onto the Tube.

Cycling is not a serious alternative and all too often is used as an excuse not to invest in buses and trains.
Nick Biskinis

Pride should have honoured elders

I fully endorse Rainer Schulze’s letter regarding the lack of inclusion of elder LGBT+ members of the community in the Pride parade [“Older people are part of Pride too”, July 9]. This year, as it was the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, all elder LGBT+ people should have led the parade, as it is indeed their actions, such as forming the Gay Liberation Front, that led to the abolition of Section 28, new freedoms and far greater acknowledgement and equality. Maybe next year the organisers can put that right?
David Weale

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