I don’t trust a word smooth-talker Nick Clegg says about protecting our children online

The PR man’s assurances that Meta is serious about children’s safety should be taken with a huge pinch of salt

Ironically, the Chatham House Rule (a variation on what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas) didn’t apply in actual Chatham House last week when Sir Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, gave a talk. And, thus, out from his mouth and further disseminated came his view that, in spite of his company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, introducing scores of ways to help parents customise their kids’ accounts, the safeguards remain largely ineffectual.
“Guess what?” he said. “One of the things we do find… is that even when we build those controls parents don’t use them. So we have a behavioural issue.”
As a result, we learn, the company is changing tack. In a new initiative, 13 to 17-year-olds will be moved to new accounts where content and messaging restrictions will be switched on by default. “If they’re under 16, they’ll have to ask Mum and Dad if they can change those settings,” said Sir Nick, “[shifting] the balance in favour of the parents.”
Because all the filth, the harm, the bullying and the brain neutering inflicted onto children by social media up to now hasn’t been his fault, or the fault of the firm he works for.
Sir Nick, or can I call him Clegg (there’s only so much genuflecting I can manage at this time of day), is constantly dispatched by his bosses to tour the world and reassure everyone that everything’s fine. And he is bright and smart and charming, with a firm and eloquent grasp of the King’s English. He’s an ex-British parliamentarian and graduate of Cambridge University so he’s the perfect PR man for Meta.
Meta, whose very name suggests its intent to control and own the metaverse – the virtual world – and whose clear ambition is to take over the actual world, prefers to have nice posh boy Clegg doing the PR than geeky Mark Zuckerberg.
There is growing alarm about the harm social media is doing to young people so it’s encouraging that Meta has at least acknowledged the problem.
But the issue is not just with Instagram – it is with the phones themselves. As any parent who has ever attended a school online safety briefing can tell you, there are hundreds of social media and communications apps. Put safety restrictions on one and the kids can just flock to another. And because they’re kids and the devices are designed to ensnare them at as young an age as possible, they’re experts at operating these things. Digital natives.
That’s why 12-year-olds can show Grandma how to use her new iPhone.
Kids will soon be pestering their parents to loosen the restrictions on the new ‘teen accounts’. Although Meta doesn’t specify what, in this new dysfunctional age, constitutes a parent: in the, not uncommon, absence of a conventional mother or father then who? A guardian, uncle, older brother or sister? Will the kid who lives with his grandad sit down with the lovely old chap and talk him through how to lift Instagram restrictions on his Samsung Galaxy S24?
And pester or not, they’ll just discover from their friends new apps, which they can hide in some crafty ‘vault’ masquerading as a calculator, and where they can get back to good old sharing, chatting and bullying or being bullied.
And, of course, millions of children will just lie about their age. (A report by Ofcom in 2022 estimated that one in three children give a false date of birth to access adult content on social media.)
Now Meta claim, and I quote their newsroom, that they “will scrutinise behavioural signals such as when an account was created, what kind of content and accounts it interacts with, and how the user writes. Those who Meta deems could be teens will then be asked to verify their ages.” 
And who will do this? Well no one of course. By which I mean a robot. And as neither AI nor a human has ever even responded to my reports of fake accounts in my name and direct threats of violence forgive me if I don’t take their claims on verifying the ages of millions of individual children seriously.
Of course, parents could just take the devices away. But they won’t, because parents give kids smartphones to keep the peace and to make sure their children are in with their friends.
There was a scintilla of good news earlier this month, when one of England’s largest school academy trusts, Ormiston, which runs 42 state schools, announced it was banning phones for its 35,000 pupils. But the prospect of other organisations following suit is dim; it takes a headteacher of considerable courage and rhino skin to do it. This in spite of the fact that there is absolutely no need for a child, 16 and under, to have a phone that does anything other than receive and make calls or texts. A child does not need to bank, buy airline or train tickets, use Waze, Nespresso, eBay, search for property or watch Netflix, let alone create an idealised profile of themselves for comment and validation, at the very least on their way to, from, or at school.
Give a 12-year-old boy a smartphone and they’ll find it far more interesting to watch people popping huge zits on YouTube than reading a book. At which point they are lost to the metaverse. Only the strongest willed could sit in their rooms and read without wanting to reach for the phone to see a funny pic, video or send a cheeky message.
Children need protecting and before adulthood every encouragement to discover the wonders of books. In years ahead, people will look back at this era and wonder how dumb we all were for letting our kids be duped into the metaverse of stupefaction.
So until Clegg opens a bookshop, I wouldn’t trust a word he says.