Social media threat to our children, by Kate Winslet

KATE Winslet has called for a ‘seismic’ change to protect children from harmful content online as she warned it has never been ‘a more dangerous time’ to grow up.

The Oscar- winning actress added that it had also ‘never been a harder time to be a parent’, as she used an awards speech to call for laws to help keep youngsters safe.

Ms Winslet, 47, made the comments as she picked up a best actress award at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards on Tuesday night.

She won the prize for her part in the one-off Channel 4 drama I am Ruth, which sees her playing a mother trying to help her child – played by her real-life daughter Mia Threapleton – who has become affected by the pressures of social media.

Ms Winslet told the audience: ‘It has never been a harder time to be a parent.

‘It has never been a more dangerous time to be a child in an online world. So let’s hope that the next Online Safety Bill implements significant and seismic change that will fundamentally help towards securing the safety of all of our children by recognising and criminalising harmful content.’

She spoke of ‘mothers who are sitting at home right now worrying about what on earth their child is doing upstairs, consumed by the damaging side of social media’. Ms Winslet also referred to parents who ‘wish they could go back and have not allowed their child a smartphone for their birthday’.

In January the father of Molly Russell said social media giants had not taken meaningful changes since his daughter took her own life in 2017. The inquest heard how Molly, 14, from northwest London, was exposed to a large amount of self-harm and suicide content on social media in the months before her death.

The Online Safety Bill, which will require social media companies to remove illegal content or face penalties, is working its way through Parliament.