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‘Child poverty has got a lot worse’: outgoing charity boss lambasts Tory failures and social media giants
- NSPCC CEO, Peter Wanless, has criticised the UK government's failure to tackle child poverty and improve results for children, highlighting that resources to support early interventions have fallen by 44% while the number of children taken into care has risen by 28% since 2010. Wanless has also criticised social media firms and their misplaced priorities, calling out Instagram and Snapchat in particular, as well as condemning politicians for not banning smacking in England. Despite support for calls to block social media for children, Wanless argues that blanket restrictions risk setting back education and child development.
- The outgoing CEO iterated that there were a lack of safeguards for children in the digital world, citing a 2017 case in which a 14-year-old girl who had viewed graphic self-harm content on Instagram committed suicide. While Meta has launched over 50 tools to increase child safety, researchers have found that Instagram is still failing to moderate inadequate self-harm content.
- Snapchat, which is listed as the worst platform for child grooming, is also criticised by Wanless. During his tenure at NSPCC he met with social media firms regularly, calling for greater strictures and compliance with existing regulatory standards. Wanless believes that the onus is on tech companies to design with the legal enforcement of duty of care and guardrails.
- Wanless is a strong proponent of improving the strategic outlook to benefit children’s outcomes. In his view banning smacking in England would aid improvements, making it illegal to hit a child in England as it is already in Scotland and Wales. While improvements have been slow in coming Wanless has said that he is “encouraged” by the increased attention being given to the issue.
- Despite criticism of the Tories and social media firms and their parent company, Facebook, alongside calls for greater safeguarding measures online and a determination to see smacking banned; Wanless sees the jury still out on Labour’s hopes to improve outcomes for children if they come to power once again.
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