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Simfin

online safety and digital citizenship specialist

Parents/Carers News

15 February 2023

As a young girl, Alice (not her real name) logged on to the popular live video chat website, Omegle, and was randomly paired with a paedophile, who coerced her into becoming a digital sex slave. Nearly 10 years later the young American is suing Omegle in a landmark case that could pave the way for a wave of lawsuits against other social platforms.

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13 February 2023

Counter-extremism workers have warned of a rapid rise in the number of cases being referred to them by schools concerned about the influence of the self-styled misogynist influencer Andrew Tate.

Incidents include the verbal harassment of female teachers or other pupils and outbursts echoing Tate’s views, which are disseminated and spread mainly on social platforms TikTok and Instagram despite him being banned from them.

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11 February 2023

'I spent weeks inside Andrew Tate’s online business course – originally called Hustler’s University, it has since been rebranded to “The Real World”. The course costs £40 a month and poses as a get-rich-quick scheme with courses in e-commerce and cryptocurrency. But beneath the surface is a capitalist cult of over 220,000 young men who worship Tate and are being indoctrinated by the far-right who have infiltrated the online business course.'

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08 February 2023

Rape jokes, racism, bullying - if you've picked up a controller, or scrolled a mouse, to dabble in some online gaming then you've likely come across plenty.

The gaming industry, like others where people interact online, has been trying to figure out how to get to grips with behaviour like this for years.

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06 February 2023

Dakota Fink didn’t mean to spread a lie. Honestly, she didn’t.

It was May 2021 and the 23-year-old LA-based model was wearing a face mask. “I was thinking I needed to be more involved with TikTok,” she says. So she decided to record a video as a joke: She’d pull off the flesh-coloured face mask on camera, and subtitle it with a claim that women had to peel layers of their skin off after their period.

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03 February 2023

The UK boss of Samsung Mobile has said he did not give his daughter a smartphone until she was 11.

"I personally wouldn't have given her one early, but it is a parental decision as to when you should get your child a phone," said James Kitto.

He said whatever age people get phones, it was important to make sure they were safe online.

It comes after Ofsted's chief inspector said she was "surprised" when primary school children have smartphones.

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