The Online Safety Act is a long and complex piece of legislation, but its very first section explains its purpose: regulated services must be “safe by design”.

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Yet, over two and a half years on, we’re no further forward with this aim. Ofcom, the online safety regulator, has produced a series of codes of practice for industry that are narrow in scope and limited to ex-post measures designed to deal with harm after it has occurred.

Parents are exasperated at the lack of meaningful change while the services their kids use seem to be getting worse - more harmful, more dangerous, designed to be more distracting and more attention-sapping. Calls for banning children from platforms have crowded out more strategic, systemic approaches.

But there is another way - and it is one that new........

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