Instagram unveils new feature as govt tightens online safety rules
Instagram is releasing a feature that will let users easily reset their algorithms, as the government strengthens its regulation of online safety.
With the new reset feature, users can clear their recommended content from Explore, Reels and their feed, potentially reducing the amount of harmful content they are exposed to.
It’s all part of Meta’s push to make the app safer for young people, after announcing more private Teen accounts in September.
The feature, which will soon be rolled out globally, was announced as the government outlined its priorities for online safety.
Peter Kyle, Labour’s technology secretary, said Ofcom should ensure the concept of “safety by design” is being followed by tech companies from the outset.
That would ensure more harm is caught before it occurs.
Peter Kyle (L). Pic: Reuters
He also pushed for more transparency from tech giants on what harms are occurring on their platforms.
“From baking safety into social media sites from the outset, to increasing platform transparency, these priorities will allow us to monitor progress, collate evidence, innovate, and act where laws are coming up short,” Mr Kyle said.
While the announcement was welcomed by child protection groups, some cautioned that the government needed to go further.
Ian Russell, chair of trustees at Molly Rose Foundation, said: “This announcement outlines a much needed course correction, vital for improved online safety, and to prevent the new regulation falling badly short of expectations.
“However, while this lays down an important marker for Ofcom to be bolder, it is also abundantly clear that we need a new Online Safety Act to strengthen current structural deficiencies and focus minds on the importance of harm reduction.
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Meanwhile, the NSPCC has urged social media platforms to be more transparent and proactive about child safety.
“They should be disrupting ‘safe havens’ for offenders by tackling the hidden abuse taking place through private messaging,” said Maria Neophytou, director of strategy and knowledge at the NSPCC.
“It is right that the government is focusing on driving innovation and new technology that can identify and disrupt abuse and prevent harm from happening in the first place.
“The regulatory framework has the potential to change the online world for children.”
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Whitehall officials tried to convince Michael Gove to go to court to cover up the grooming scandal in 2011, Sky News can reveal.
Dominic Cummings, who was working for Lord Gove at the time, has told Sky News that officials in the Department for Education (DfE) wanted to help efforts by Rotherham Council to stop a national newspaper from exposing the scandal.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr Cummings said that officials wanted a “total cover-up”.
Politics latest: Grooming gangs findings unveiled
The revelation shines a light on the institutional reluctance of some key officials in central government to publicly highlight the grooming gang scandal.
In 2011, Rotherham Council approached the Department for Education asking for help following inquiries by The Times. The paper’s then chief reporter, the late Andrew Norfolk, was asking about sexual abuse and trafficking of children in Rotherham.
The council went to Lord Gove’s Department for Education for help. Officials considered the request and then recommended to Lord Gove’s office that the minister back a judicial review which might, if successful, stop The Times publishing the story.
Lord Gove rejected the request on the advice of Mr Cummings. Sources have independently confirmed Mr Cummings’ account.
Education Secretary Michael Gove in 2011. Pic: PA
Mr Cummings told Sky News: “Officials came to me in the Department of Education and said: ‘There’s this Times journalist who wants to write the story about these gangs. The local authority wants to judicially review it and stop The Times publishing the story’.
“So I went to Michael Gove and said: ‘This council is trying to actually stop this and they’re going to use judicial review. You should tell the council that far from siding with the council to stop The Times you will write to the judge and hand over a whole bunch of documents and actually blow up the council’s JR (judicial review).’
“Some officials wanted a total cover-up and were on the side of the council…
“They wanted to help the local council do the cover-up and stop The Times’ reporting, but other officials, including in the DfE private office, said this is completely outrageous and we should blow it up. Gove did, the judicial review got blown up, Norfolk stories ran.”
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Grooming gangs victim speaks out
The judicial review wanted by officials would have asked a judge to decide about the lawfulness of The Times’ publication plans and the consequences that would flow from this information entering the public domain.
A second source told Sky News that the advice from officials was to side with Rotherham Council and its attempts to stop publication of details it did not want in the public domain.
One of the motivations cited for stopping publication would be to prevent the identities of abused children entering the public domain.
There was also a fear that publication could set back the existing attempts to halt the scandal, although incidents of abuse continued for many years after these cases.
Sources suggested that there is also a natural risk aversion amongst officials to publicity of this sort.
Read more on grooming gangs:
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Mr Cummings, who ran the Vote Leave Brexit campaign and was Boris Johnson’s right-hand man in Downing Street, has long pushed for a national inquiry into grooming gangs to expose failures at the heart of government.
He said the inquiry, announced today, “will be a total s**tshow for Whitehall because it will reveal how much Whitehall worked to try and cover up the whole thing.”
He also described Mr Johnson, with whom he has a long-standing animus, as a “moron’ for saying that money spent on inquiries into historic child sexual abuse had been “spaffed up the wall”.
Asked by Sky News political correspondent Liz Bates why he had not pushed for a public inquiry himself when he worked in Number 10 in 2019-20, Mr Cummings said Brexit and then COVID had taken precedence.
“There are a million things that I wanted to do but in 2019 we were dealing with the constitutional crisis,” he said.
The Department for Education and Rotherham Council have been approached for comment.
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