Governments using the entertainment industry to push their political agendas and propaganda is neither a new nor an uncommon occurrence – but top officials effectively openly admitting to that, is unusual.
On the last day of March, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with the creators of the Netflix show Adolescence, along with representatives of charities, and youths, when a number of revealing comments were about the agenda regarding censorship, online age verification, and digital ID.
More:Â Netflix’s Adolescence is a Trojan Horse For Online Censorship and Surveillance Policy
Despite already having the hugely controversial Online Safety Act at his cabinet’s disposal, judging by Starmer’s remarks, things could easily go from bad to worse.
“The Online Safety Act is not the end of the conversation but the foundation,” he said, and, without announcing any specific plans, warned that the government “will not hesitate to strengthen the law further where necessary.”
With regard to the Online Safety Act in its current form, Starmer told the meeting that platforms will have to “ensure” that children are unable to access what he said is dangerous content, mentioning “hateful misogyny and violence” as the target for even tighter censorship.
Also starting this summer, another thing platforms must “ensure” is the implementation of age verification, or as Starmer put it, provide “an age-appropriate experience” for children online.
He was supported on both counts by one of the participants in the meeting, National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) Director of Strategy & Knowledge Maria Neophytou, who said that the internet is “polluted by harmful and misogynistic content which is having a direct impact on the development of young people’s thinking and behaviors.”
Starmer, in turn, agreed with this, pinning the blame for the radicalization of young people, and for the spread of misogyny on access to online content, and went as far as to claim that the internet is more dangerous in proliferating these dangers than the physical world.
To counter all this, the UK government intends to update school teaching guidance (according to previous reports, to include “lessons to counter misogyny and the growing appeal of influencers such as Andrew Tate”) and also screen Adolescence in schools, while Netflix will make it available to all secondary schools in the UK.
During the meeting, Starmer’s words about the show revealed it is essentially viewed as a propaganda tool to steer the “national conversation” on child safety into a particular direction, if need be, by manipulating people’s emotions:
“I think that tells you how compelling it is because it instantly contacts with the fears and worries not just of young people – because I was really struck by how riveted our children were to it – but also, frankly, the fears and worries of parents and adults across the country.”
