Dr. Xanthe Weston

You know, they're already vulnerable.

So they are easier to target and coerce into these activities.

And I don't think the ban on under-16s on social media has really helped.

They found a way around it.

Platforms aren't necessarily being particularly supportive of that ban.

So I think there are some things that we can do to help kind of drive kids away from these activities.

I think education, we need to educate them and the parents, but an education campaign needs to be from the other young people.

Yeah.

Maybe young people have been caught up in this.

Like we can sit here and we can talk to young people till we're blue in the fleece and a 16, 17 year old is going to look at me and think I'm super uncool.

Although I like to think I'm cool.

But, you know, kids look at us and go, what do they know?

Right.

Yeah.

But another 17 year old who's who's maybe been to juvenile detention or who was harmed in a firebombing or something.

Yeah.

they can reach them on a different level.

But also I think we need to take away the rewards generally on these platforms, the likes, the posts, the boasting, the algorithmic upscaling of harmful content.

If you take away the reward element, kids aren't going to want to do it.

I know, horrendous.