Daily Safeguarding Update

Extremists using online gaming and COVID-19 conspiracies to recruit young people

Right-wing extremists are using online gaming and COVID-19 conspiracy theories to recruit young people.
Home Office figures show twice as many young people in education in England and Wales last year were considered at risk of radicalisation by right-wing extremist groups, compared with those at risk from Islamic extremists.
New figures from the government’s Prevent anti-extremism programme, show that 310 people were referred to Prevent by schools, colleges and universities.
157 people were referred because of vulnerability to Islamic extremism.
Almost one in three cases involving far-right extremism was passed on to the government’s Channel safeguarding scheme.
Full story, here.

A coalition of US state Attorneys General have opened an investigation into Facebook for promoting Instagram to children despite the company’s own awareness of its potential harms.
The investigation involves at least eight states, as Meta (previously known as Facebook) faces increasing criticism over its approach to children and young adults.
Recently leaked documents show that the company’s internal research described Instagram as negatively affecting teen mental health, particularly about body image.
The investigation will cover whether the company violated consumer protection laws and put young people at risk.
Full story, here.

A security company has revealed almost 6 million Sky routers had a serious software bug that could have allowed hackers to take over home networks.
Research says that the issue has been fixed but Sky took 18 months to address it.
The issue may have affected anyone who had not changed the router’s default admin password.
This follows a discovery earlier this year that an insecure Vodafone router with a default password may have allowed a stranger to take over a couple’s Wi-fi and use it to upload illegal images of child abuse to the internet.
Full story, here.

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said it is testing new ways for users to customise the content they see in their News Feeds.
The company said on Thursday that the test is available to a “small percentage” of users to start.
These controls would allow people to adjust their preferences to increase or reduce the amount of content they see from specific friends, family, groups, and pages they’re connected with.
This follows several modifications to the way Facebook presents News Feed content in the past several years.
Full story, here.

According to new government rules, parents in England must be allowed to buy some uniform items from High Street shops.
Second-hand items should be made available while the cost of branded uniform must be kept to a minimum.
In 2015, government research showed that parents could save an average of almost £50 if they bought all uniform items from High Street shops instead of designated suppliers.
The new statutory advice strengthens the obligation for schools to reduce uniform costs at a time of increases to the cost of living and child poverty.
Full story, here.