{"id":7052,"date":"2019-02-02T21:19:13","date_gmt":"2019-02-02T21:19:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/regulate-social-media-to-protect-children-mps-urge\/"},"modified":"2019-02-02T21:19:13","modified_gmt":"2019-02-02T21:19:13","slug":"regulate-social-media-to-protect-children-mps-urge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.styledeals.co.uk\/blog\/regulate-social-media-to-protect-children-mps-urge\/","title":{"rendered":"Regulate social media to protect children, MPs urge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Social media companies should have a legal “duty of care” to children, the UK Parliament’s Science and Technology Committee has recommended.<\/p>\n

The group’s report said social media had helped facilitate bullying and online grooming of children.<\/p>\n

It called for a regulator to be established to take “enforcement action” if apps broke the law.<\/p>\n

A number of privacy and data scandals have led to calls for social media companies to be regulated.<\/p>\n

Facebook’s new vice-president Sir Nick Clegg has already pledged to do “whatever it takes” to make the company’s platforms safer for young people.<\/p>\n

Sir Nick was responding to the case of 14-year-old Molly Russell<\/a>, who took her own life after viewing distressing self-harm images on Instagram in 2017.<\/p>\n

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\n Molly Russell’s father says Instagram is partly responsible for her death
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Her father said he believed Facebook-owned Instagram was partly responsible for his daughter’s death.<\/p>\n

What is the report about?<\/h2>\n

The committee has been looking at the effect of social media and so-called screen time on the health of children.<\/p>\n

During its inquiry, it surveyed more than 3,000 young people.<\/p>\n

It said social media had positive attributes, but also led to:<\/p>\n