Online Harms

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) for securing this debate. His introduction was eloquent and his knowledge of the subject very evident.

I will be honest with the House: when I first saw the title of this debate, I was not quite sure what to focus on or where to start. Everyone here has raised different issues. Do we start with addictive algorithms, underage children being able to access pornographic content, non-consensual image editing, financial scams or medical misinformation? My hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) pointed to the harassment of people being filmed without their consent on the street. This is an absolute wild west and we have not even mentioned electoral interference by foreign powers.

Part of this wild west is AI chatbots, which I have spoken about on several occasions in this House. It surprised me to learn that a third of adults have relied on an AI chatbot for mental health advice or support, or for advice on a life choice. It is also concerning that one in four teenagers has done the same thing. That is not helped by the fact that over a million people are on NHS waiting lists waiting for mental health treatment. Those people are looking for other options. Although these chatbots could be useful if designed in the right way, the concern is that they are unregulated. The medical advice that they are giving is unsafe and can be dangerous. We know that some people with eating disorders are getting advice on low calorie diets and how to access weight-loss drugs, which are completely inappropriate for them. My hon. Friend the Member for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire spoke about children using chatbots to get around the safeguards of online gambling companies. That is hugely dangerous.

Then we come back to the general social media that people have been talking about. When I speak to people in Winchester, I hear that parents want action on social media, teachers want action on social media, and even many young people, especially teenagers, say that they think social media is dangerous and damaging. Many of them actually want us to take action on it as well.

The Liberal Democrats have been working hard for the past few months to develop a position on this. My hon. Friends the Members for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) and for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) have spent months engaging with experts, charities and other organisations to come up with robust, evidence-based positions that would help us to tackle this issue. What we propose for the platforms with addictive algorithms that allow children to make contact with strangers, or for strangers to make contact with them to show inappropriate content, is to have an age rating like we see with films and video games. If we ban specific platforms, other ones pop up and we end up in a sort of regulatory whack-a-mole where we cannot keep on top of it all. If we take a principles-based approach that is based on the harm that can be caused, it can be applied to current and future platforms.

To be clear, those proposals, if applied today, would effectively result in a social media ban, because current social media platforms would not be suitable for children under 16 years old. However, there is nothing to stop technology companies creating online spaces that do not have dangerous, addictive algorithms, that do not have inappropriate contact, and that do not allow strangers to contact children. They could create useful spaces where children can connect and help each other with their homework.

One reason that we do not support the Conservatives’ headline-grabbing proposal of a complete ban on social media is that it would remove the ability for children to use Wikipedia to do homework. It would also mean that children under 16 would not be allowed to use WhatsApp, so they would be kicked out of the family WhatsApp group, and we know how many families rely on the WhatsApp group to run their lives.

We need intelligent, proactive regulation that is fit for purpose. It is not just a matter of announcing policies that chase headlines and taking quick political positions to get a hit in the media. This is such an entrenched problem, and we need cross-party support to tackle it in a meaningful way.

I think we all agree that scrolling is the new smoking. Like smoking, we already know the dangers. With smoking, we knew for decades. We knew that it was harmful and addictive, and specifically harmful for children. We know what happens: the risks are downplayed by lobbyists and the big companies, and the debate ends up shaped by misinformation and industry lobbying—and it is happening again. These new technologies, which sit at the heart of people’s emotional lives, are still subject to remarkably little scrutiny.

One day we may look back on the unregulated social media landscape and AI chatbots in the same way that we now look back at smoking. We will say that we knew the risks and we knew that action had to be taken, but we waited too long and people suffered, even died—and it was preventable. These are not abstract concerns. Poorly regulated social media and AI are some of the most pressing emerging public health threats.

I really would urge the Minister to agree to meet me and my Liberal Democrat colleagues to discuss the proposals we have come up with. They are backed by organisations such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. They are powerful yet nuanced enough to have a genuine impact in this area, and they could be implemented immediately.