The Netflix drama “Adolescence”, which has sparked widespread debate in regards to the poisonous and misogynistic influences younger boys are uncovered to on-line, is to be proven in UK secondary colleges, officers mentioned on Monday.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who met the creators of the present alongside charities and younger individuals at his Downing Street workplace, known as the transfer “an important initiative” which might assist begin conversations in regards to the content material youngsters eat on-line.
Starmer mentioned he had watched the drama — wherein a 13-year-old boy stabs a lady to demise after being radicalized on the web — along with his personal teenage youngsters and that it had “hit home hard”.
The web and social media meant “ideology” can now be “pumped directly into the minds of our children”, he added.
“Adolescence”, which was launched on March 13, follows the aftermath of the schoolgirl’s deadly stabbing, revealing the damaging influences boys are subjected to on-line and the key which means children are giving to seemingly harmless emojis.
Maria Neophytou of the UK’s youngsters’s charity NSPCC mentioned the assembly with the prime minister had been a “critical milestone”.
“The online world is being polluted by harmful and misogynistic content which is having a direct impact on the development of young people’s thinking and behaviors. This cannot be allowed to continue,” she mentioned.
The collection has resonated with an viewers more and more disturbed by a litany of stunning knife crimes dedicated by younger individuals and the misogynistic rhetoric of influencers like Andrew Tate.
Earlier this 12 months it emerged that Axel Rudakubana, a British teenager who stabbed to demise three younger women in a knife rampage final July, had considered footage of one other high-profile stabbing simply earlier than the assault.
Australia notably banned entry to social media for all under-16s late final 12 months.
“Adolescence” additionally highlights the “incel” (involuntary celibacy) tradition of males who really feel unattractive to the other intercourse and harbor a hatred of girls.
Netflix’s vice chairman of UK content material Anne Mensah mentioned the collection had “helped articulate the pressures young people and parents face”.
“Adolescence” had 24.3 million views in its first 4 days, making it Netflix’s high present for the week of March 10-16, in accordance with the leisure trade journal Variety.
New UK guidelines requiring know-how companies to deal with unlawful content material on their platforms — together with excessive pornography and little one intercourse abuse materials — got here into power on March 17 as a part of the federal government’s Online Safety Act, however had been dismissed as “timid” by critics.
Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly died aged 14 in November 2017 after viewing dangerous materials on social media, mentioned the strategy had been dominated by media regulator Ofcom’s “fear of legal challenge and their eagerness to placate the tech companies”.
“Worried parents across the country are dismayed by yet more half measures,” he added.
“Adolescence” author Jack Thorne mentioned he hoped an answer could possibly be discovered to the problems raised by the collection.
“It’s about other people … being given the opportunity to have conversations they haven’t had before and that they should have had that might lead to policy change and things being made better for our young people,” he advised Sky News after the assembly.
© 2025 AFP