A “Snapshot of Rock Bottom”: What Kids See Online Every Day

Social media, not adult sites, is teaching kids about sex. According to the United Kingdom's Children's Commissioner, Childhood in 2025 is colliding with an online world that is completely unfit for children. A new report finds 70% of kids have seen online porn with an average first exposure at 13 and many encountering it by 11. Some. Here's the disturbing part. Some as young as 6 years old. Crucially, most aren't searching for porn. 59% stumble on it by accident, largely via social platforms, not porn sites. Pornography is no longer something that children might seek out. Dame Rachel d' Souza writes. It is shown to them without even looking for it. She calls the findings a snapshot of what rock bottom, bottom looks like. The content is often violent or degrading. Widespread exposure to strangulation, choking, abusive name calling, even depictions of rape. Four in five respondents say porn reshapes expectations about sex. The Commissioner's message is blunt. The status quo is a systemic failure. Policy, platforms and parents must act. Okay, what's the real message here? Parents and social media sites are doing a horrible job. If you're a parent and you fret and worry about, oh my goodness, my 12 year old walked down the block to the park and no one was there hovering over them, you're worried about the wrong thing. Crime in the real world has never been lower. But people sending messages, images of violent pornography to your 13 year old, 11 year old, even your 6 year old, that has never been stronger. And it's coming from your laptop, from, from your iPad and from your cell phone. Start protecting yourself, your kids, from your screens, not from a walk to the park. Let's dig a little bit deeper here because this, I can tell you firsthand as someone with a child, this stuff does creep out. Even if you don't personally visit sites like this, even if you try to put passwords on all of your computers and your iPads, it's still easy to have it pop up. And without seeming like a prude here, I'm not suggesting that adults shouldn't have access to porn. Not my cup of tea. But in a free society, that has to be legal at some level. Obviously, there can be restrictions against child porn, violent depictions, but children, six year olds, no, we do not need to empower big multibillion, in some cases trillion dollar companies to make more money by pushing out ads and pushing out images that are pornographic. Let's go over the facts again. First, exposure, according to this study from the United Kingdom is age 13, 27% of children by the age of 11 have been exposed to pornography and 70% of kids of all kids are reporting exposure to pornography. The main gateways are Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. I know for my own daughter that I've put on blocks on all of those websites for her phone and so. But in, you know, if she's sitting on a bus and another kid has YouTube, can I be there on the bus to protect her from that? No. So it permeates almost every aspect of culture and there's a public policy solution to this and there's also a personal solution. What we try to do here on Filtered is talk about both in a way that your typical news show, business show does not. Certainly from a public policy standpoint. We all need to get over our idea that any kind of regulation of big tech companies is somehow anti tech or socialist. No, we have rules for everything else in life. We don't say to a bar, hey, you can serve alcohol to a 10 year old, it's a free market. No, we say you, you did this, you harmed a child, you lose your liquor license, you're out of business, you can go bankrupt and maybe go to jail. We regulate all sorts of industries that could cause harm to children. It's time to get over this fetish of technology where we think, well, technologists, they're special. No they're not. They just want to make money off of your kids. And if it's sending your kids ads to porno sites or you porn or any of that, they will gladly do it. So part of it is you're going to have to support political candidates who are in, who are more in favor of regulating the sort of filth that big tech companies routinely put out without age gating. There needs to be an age gate for this sort of thing. The next thing is at the personal level, maybe you can't. You and I can't control congresses and parliaments and legislatures around the world or our own country. You can control yourself and can at least have a bigger sphere of influence for your own children. I'm going to say this. It's going to make me unpopular if you just give an iPad or a cell phone to a kid who's under 16, arguably even under 18, and you don't put all sorts of restrictions on it. You're a bad parent. You are. But TJ my kid says they'll be ostracized if they don't have full access to everything. Don't listen to them. If every. Sorry to sound like a real old timer baby boomer. But if everybody, every kid in your neighborhood gets to jump off a cliff, are you going to let your own child jump off a cliff? No. It's your job first and foremost to protect your own child. And if you are letting them have unbridled access to essentially snuff films, which you're doing, if you let your own iPad sit around, you put your iPad down on the table to go to the restroom or get a sandwich and it doesn't lock up, you are exposing your child to a lot more nastiness than if they were to walk to the park unattended and somebody flashes them. So I urge you, and it's hard to do, I have messed up from time to time, okay? But I urge you, check out what sort of security you have on any screen in your house if you have a child less than 18, certainly less than 16. Okay, we got a lot more stories to come and comments coming from you, too. TPFE says. Can a famous political name still open doors in modern politics, or do social media skills now matter more? So, yes, it opens doors. It doesn't necessarily mean you win political races. I mean, every single election cycle, there are tons of famous people running for political office who fail miserably. A name alone gets you more attention the day you announce. A name alone will get you meetings with people. A name alone will often help you raise more money. But in politics, that's just not enough. Look no further than the 2016 Republican nomination for president. Nobody had more name ID than Jeb Bush. His brother had been president, his father had been president, he'd been governor. He was really famous and he had a lot of money. Didn't help him once primary season started because Donald Trump was better at social media and real media and CNN and all media. Now, the interesting thing is the question that's coming from our viewer is what's more important, the name or social media? I would argue the social media skills are more important. But if you can combine the two, having a famous name and being really good at social media, that might be an insurmountable asset. That might be something that is so powerful that it really can propel someone to victory. I'm not yet predicting that Slussberg wins this congressional seat, but I will predict he gets a lot of attention. And unless he flames out or does things that are incredibly stupid, we're going to be hearing a lot from this young man. And I say Young. He's 32. His grandfather was elected to Congress, 30 or 29, I believe. And his uncle, Ted Kennedy, was elected to the senate at age 30. In an era where all of our politicians seem to be 150, 32 does seem young, but it's certainly not too young to be a member of Congress.