Andy Burrows

CEO @mollyroseorg / tech accountability / good trouble / ‘launcher of PDF missiles’ (Playbook)

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

Today, @mollyroseorg urges the next Govt to commit to five transformative policies that can reset the relationship between tech firms and child safety. It’s time for a new #OnlineSafetyAct & a bold new tech accountability framework. Read here:
https://t.co/1w8bkT3fBM

[Charles Hymas @charleshymas]

Most Australian children have evaded the government’s ban on social media for under-16s, a new survey has found @_andyburrows @mollyroseorg @leicesterliz @DamianCollins @NSPCCChris @NSPCC @PoliceInspForum @BertinGabby @5RightsFound https://t.co/uzwFBw7206

[Charles Hymas @charleshymas]

.@Keir_Starmer must not ban under-16s from social media before Australia has shown whether its scheme works, @Nigel_Farage has said @leicesterliz @wesstreeting @mollyroseorg @NSPCC @PoliceInspForum @_andyburrows https://t.co/JUfOmSTMZA

[Charles Hymas @charleshymas]

Banning social media for under 16s will not work and could put children at greater risk of harm, the father of Molly Russell has said @leicesterliz @Keir_Starmer @KemiBadenoch @mollyroseorg @_andyburrows @NSPCC @5RightsFound @PoliceInspForum @DamianCollins @DannyShawNews @wesstreeting https://t.co/TiR50kbDYA

[Laura Kuenssberg @bbclaurak]

To ban or not to ban? me and @bbcpaddy are joined by @mollyrosefoundation 's Ian Russell as politicians seem to be warming up to the idea of banning social media for under 16s... his arguments are not what you might expect https://t.co/KkHmYRkZDX

[Charles Hymas @charleshymas]

An Australian-style social media ban on under-16s may not be a panacea for protecting children from harm online, campaigners have warned @Keir_Starmer @leicesterliz @_andyburrows @mollyroseorg @5RightsFound @DamianCollins @PoliceInspForum @DannyShawNews @peterkyle @InternetMatters @NSPCC @PeterWanless https://t.co/VkOH3I5srG

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

Tech accountability, 2025 edition

[Nuno Felix @Felix_Nuno]

This is a great snapshot of what this whole debate is about:

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

This is a superb explainer ahead of tomorrow - the clearest explanation I’ve seen of why the UK’s productivity gap is a chokehold on our finances

[Ed Conway @EdConwaySky]

📽️What on earth is "fiscal drag"?
Why will it form the centrepiece of @RachelReevesMP's efforts to raise money this week?
Why are Budgets getting ever more complex?
And could this one backfire like @George_Osborne's omnishambles?
All this and more in my 11m(!) primer👇

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

@theobertram But equally important we’re looking out for unintended consequences- do malign actors migrate to gaming and other platforms currently out of scope? Does regulatory momentum dry up & safety-by-design wither on the vine? Are MH impacts really all net positive as proponents suggest?

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

@ObhishekSaha @Ofcom Hi Abhishek. The data on the deaths stemming from this forum come from one of your own @QMUL colleagues - it’s an interesting absolutist take to describe acting against a pro-suicide forum, founded by nihilists and linked to 133 deaths, as a ‘disgrace.’

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

UPDATE: @Ofcom now digging themselves further in knots, saying they acted on ‘new evidence’ that, if they were monitoring the forum properly, they’d have known was being bragged about on the forum all along.

This is now raising serious questions about their competency.

[Molly Rose Foundation @mollyroseorg]

On @SkyNews our CEO @_andyburrows says Ofcom must now use all the tools at their disposal to crack down on a pro-suicide forum.

It comes after families said they were appalled and dismayed at Ofcom's handling of its investigation.

[Molly Rose Foundation @mollyroseorg]

“It's so disheartening that politicians seem unable to learn the lessons from a decade of social media." - Our CEO @_andyburrows

[Molly Rose Foundation @mollyroseorg]

On @SkyNews our CEO @_andyburrows says Ofcom must now use all the tools at their disposal to crack down on a pro-suicide forum.

It comes after families said they were appalled and dismayed at Ofcom's handling of its investigation.

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

Internal data shows that Meta expected to generate 10% of its overall revenue from scam ads. This company is out of control and is a threat to economic growth https://t.co/owVWETwwCb

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

Over 800 people joined our @mollyroseorg campaign to push for a public inquiry yesterday. Join them here: https://t.co/9jM9HFHwr7

[Charles Hymas @charleshymas]

Online forums promoting suicide are still running despite being responsible for more than 130 deaths, survivors and bereaved families have told @Keir_Starmer @_andyburrows @mollyroseorg @PeterWanless @leicesterliz @PoliceInspForum @DannyShawNews https://t.co/FmiPxBZU1C

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

@zamaan_qureshi @geoffreyfowler A cynic might suggest they make this stuff up as they go along

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

@sabriprovenzani I watched this yesterday in the throes of Covid and wondered if I was actually hallucinating. Wish I was, tbh!

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

Is this being done before or after the two-thirds of existing Teen Accounts features that fundamentally don’t work get fixed, Andy? Asking for tens of millions of parents.

[Andy Stone @andymstone]

As @instagram's Adam @mosseri said, "we've revamped all of our all of guidelines about what teens can and cannot see on Instagram in a way that is guided by the PG-13 rating that was pioneered by the movie industry."

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

In the context of this, remember that:
- Ofcom delayed the adoption of measures to detect known terror content
- Peter Kyle signed off on small but high harm sites not being regulated to the standard for which Parliament allowed, despite the clear calls by antisemitism groups

[Alex Wickham @alexwickham]

NEW: Bloomberg Saturday read

— Counter-terrorism police and the security services are confronting what they fear is an increased long-term terror threat in Britain inspired by the conflict in Gaza, as well as rising antisemitism and greater operational difficulties in stopping lone terrorists radicalised online.

— “We are powerfully alive to the risk that events in the Middle East directly trigger terrorist action in the UK,” MI5 chief Ken McCallum said last year. Britain has mercifully avoided major terror incidents in recent years. The security services had feared that might not last.

— Security officials are concerned by what they see as the unquantifiable potentially radicalising effect on thousands of people in Britain, especially young people, of watching high-resolution videos of people being killed in Gaza every day. That poses both an immediate threat and the danger of what McCallum has called “slower-burn radicalisation.”

— Anti-terror police have disrupted alleged plots targeting Jewish people since Oct 7. Two men are due to face trial later this month charged with allegedly planning a gun attack on Jews in north-west England. Police are still investigating an alleged plot against the Israeli embassy this year. Last year a Moroccan asylum seeker was jailed for killing a man in a Gaza-inspired terrorist attack.

— A shift in the nature of terrorism from organised cells and larger terror groups toward lone actors means new challenges for anti-terror police. Some successful recent terrorist incidents have been carried out by people who were not on the security services’ radar, acting alone, who often quite suddenly became radicalised to the point of violence by material they had found online.

— Investigators are dealing with a messier picture, finding terrorists with limited grasp of their stated cause, often with mental-health problems and personal issues as well as extremist ideological motivations.

— For all those complexities they see one certainty: that the online world is central to both the threat and countering it, hence the UK’s ongoing efforts to circumvent encryption for terror suspects, sparking a fight with Apple and the US.

— “Sadly, we’ve long known about, and struggled to combat, the power of what people see online in radicalising minds, especially young minds. We will probably be living with the online reverberations of Hamas’s attack and the Israeli response for many years to come,” former Cabinet Secretary Simon Case told Bloomberg.

— As well as lone attackers, officials are also concerned by efforts by Al-Qaeda and particularly Islamic State Khorasan Province to use the conflict in Gaza to export their ideologies to Britain once again.

— The UK might have expected to see more Gaza-related violence if it wasn’t for Al-Qaeda and Islamic State traditionally focusing their motivations on other conflicts, namely in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, one source said. Those groups are now trying to change that to use Gaza to encourage attacks in Britain.

https://t.co/FTxr1IkMDC

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

Full splash here: https://t.co/bmhTB8HjY7

[Andy Burrows @_andyburrows]

Appalling revelations from @jeffhorwitz that Meta pushed out Teen Accounts promising protection from harmful content such as self-harm, despite internal warnings that its automated detection systems weren’t capable of delivering this @mollyroseorg @Ofcom