The Deepfake Deception: Unmasking the New Threat to Children's Cyber Safety
Back in March this year, I wrote the article below on the subject of Deepfake Pornography and the danger it poses to women and girls and how important it is that we teach all children, from a young age, about the risks online, especially as technology continues to race ahead at an unmanageable pace.
If you have followed my blog you know I have tried twice, unsuccessfully to get the Secretary of State for Education to understand the truly woeful level of education there is on this topic for many young people today due to there not being a standardised and mandatory package of content on this subject on the national curriculum, resulting in a postcode lottery for the standards of education available.
Deepfake Danger: The Growing Threat to Women and Girls
The rise of AI-generated sexual abuse and the question of whether current legislation is enough.
Yesterday I was heartened to read a story on Sky News about author Laura Bates appearing before the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC), stating there needs to be statutory guidance for teachers on how to deal with this "very significant issue", when talking about the issue of deepfake pornography she goes on to say "My suggestion would be this is the next big sexual violence epidemic facing schools and people don't even know it is going on."
I would go further to say that this all falls under my previous point that the education system as a whole is leaving online safety education in the hands of individual schools, where there may or may not be teachers available to create the content and teach it to children. Whereas I believe the content needs to be standardised and created by experienced Cyber professionals, which can then be delivered by teachers in schools as part of the national curriculum.
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As I say, I am glad to see it is still something that is being talked about, but in my world, actions always speak louder than words and the pitiful excuses coming from Government spokespersons are just kicking the can down the road.
We need to see some real action on this from the government to avoid the real hurt that it will cause young people and their families when the victims start to think they have no option but to take their own lives. This is not scaremongering as there have been numerous occasions of online activity being the cause of a young person taking their own lives.
Until we properly educate them about ALL of the risks online but more importantly, how to deal with them or seek extra support, we continue as a society to fail them.
I will be sending this post to my local MP and asking him to forward it on to the current SofS for Education who was the most recent to tell me they have adequate things in place to safeguard children, I ask you to do the same and hopefully we will get the message through that what they say they have in place is not enough.
Same sh*t, Different MP's
It was pretty much the same response as the last time I tried, it could almost be a copy and paste but I have added the letters to a gallery below and you can decide for yourselves. However, this time I didn’t even warrant a reply from the Secretary of State for Education. I am thankful to Dr Brian Matthew for caring enough to try and get my message acr…
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