After watching Adolescence do you think parents truly understand the dangers of online radicalisation?

[CeriMumsnet]

Adolescence has had us all talking since it dropped on Netflix, and with Keir Starmer now backing calls from Sir Gareth Southgate and Stephen Graham to tackle male violence and dangerous online influences, many of us are seriously thinking about just how toxic the online world is and what needs to be done to protect our children and teens.

We know Mumsnet users are deeply worried about what their kids are exposed to online, and they want more support from the government to deal with it. 70% of our users back a ban on social media for under 16s, and Mumsnet's Rage Against the Screen campaign is pushing for more action to protect our children.

We’re keen to hear from you about the extent to which you think parents understand the online world their children inhabit. Do you feel confident that you know enough about the dangers of online radicalisation?

Most of the parents who ‘need’ to watch this drama couldn’t be bothered, I feel.

I don’t have Netflix, so I have only seen clips and read about it, but it doesn’t seem that ‘factual’. if you look at the background of most of the real life stabbers, they are not from two parent households. They aren’t thirteen (I suppose they had to have him played by a fifteen year old, because most thirteen year olds look thirteen, which would skew the narrative). The vast majority of teenage stabbing victims are boys, not girls. There are several other differentiating factors, too…..

PS ,: Radicalisation refers to political indoctrination leading to terrorism or other socially disruptive activity. It doesn’t really encompass a strictly personal reaction to a failed relationship.

That toxic masculinity, if experienced and especially if emulated by the young person, falls under the radicalisation umbrella of Prevent.

Maybe if you watched it, you’d understand what the ‘hand wringing’ is about.

Adolescence was like a perfect storm, many different influences coming together to create a killer.

Schools are seeing huge problems with misogyny. Many teen boys spend hours gaming etc, usually in their rooms. Do parents really know what their DC are looking at? Many parents on here let their DC have access to You Tube, Tik Tok etc. They use parental controls, tech savvy teens can work round them, watch stuff on their mates phones. Parents think their sporty DC are so much better off than those glued to their screens as they are spending their free time at clubs. Our local schools are working with local clubs as some of the misogyny in school is being fed from the sports coaches etc.

what about all the risks from mass media, films, tv, etc they say tv, films, mass media does not influence behaviour and yet social media does ?

I think, all of these things together, go towards forming a culture or environment that could be rife with misogyny yes

Mass media, such as films, TV, radio, and video, can influence behaviour, but its impact differs from social media due to the nature of interaction. Both types of media can shape views and actions, but social media has a more immediate and personal influence, particularly in radicalisation. Mass media content can trigger emotional responses that release endorphins, reinforcing the emotional experience. However, social media amplifies this effect through instant feedback like likes or shares, creating a more addictive environment that strengthens connections to certain ideologies or behaviours.

Social media operates in a more dynamic, interactive peer group context, where online communities actively encourage specific behaviours or beliefs. This peer pressure can significantly drive radicalisation. Mass media, in contrast, is more passive, with viewers receiving information without direct peer interaction.

Regulatory bodies often impose stricter classifications and censorship on mass media to limit harmful content. This reduces the spread of extremist material via mass media, limiting how it shapes perceptions. Social media, being less regulated, allows harmful content to spread more freely, which plays a larger role in radicalisation.

"Regulatory bodies often impose stricter classifications and censorship on mass media to limit harmful content. "

yet we have peaky blinders influencing behaviours
we have Csi shows
We have dexter showcasing serial killers
then history glamourising gangs and alcapone
then we have the god farther films.

etc
etc
then the messages from rap music, or Eminem etc all influencing behaviours

yes some great restrictions

society needs the film equilibrium with Christian bale, that would be a start on improving society

Oh please, it's quite obvious that those shows are make believe or even if they have a documentary element, glamorised and embellished for dramatic effect.

They aren't directly telling or encouraging teenage boys to get young girls to kill themselves.

I agree. We’ve just watched it and from what we’d heard before hand I expected it to be all about toxic masculinity. I think it actually tried to give a broader view of things and the effect and the hidden world teenagers are part of and possibly sought to ask questions such as :why are kids of 13 out that late. Why girls are feeling the need or being coerced to send intimate photos of themselves. The dangers of bullying behaviour and the fact that the Internet means it continues after school. Why parents didn’t feel able to see what their child was doing. Are some parents afraid to get involved, do they know how to deal with things they may find upsetting or shocking about their child.
i thought it was really well done,but I think maybe a final episode delving deeper into why the boy ends up doing what he did, could have worked, if that’s what the main story was trying to emphasise.

People will search for a reason for child.killing by chidren. They need to know why. What prompted Angus Sinclair to kill a little girl of 8 when he was only 16.?
He went on to become a serial killer of women and girls. There ws no Internet when he started his life's work, no social influencer or Internet gang. Ian Brady's love of.murder was put down to a bad start in life, born illegitimate and being farmed out to. a foster family. But my father had the exact same background and never had the urge to murder
What I'm trying to say is that "reasons" given for this horrible event will be the ones that are fashionable at the time
Every move the parents make will be condemned or social conditions blamed
or the lingering psychological effects of Covid, the absence.of a father or the presence of a bad father, the influence of social media....
None of the explanations fit the crime or why are thousands of social media fans not out murdering little girls?
.

It is a drama not the messiah

I watched a discussion with a couple of Americans talking about this. One had watched it with their 14 year old who had then told him what porn you see at what age.

According to the 14 year old it starts at about 10.

then the messages from rap music, or Eminem etc all influencing behaviours

There is no evidence of this though is there? I like Opera, Don Giovani doesn't call women 'bitches' but he certainly has no respect for them. Carmen is as racist as you can get.

Is mumsnet being paid to promote Adolescence by Netflix?

the charity that is working alongside it -Tender - received £3.4m in taxpayer funding from 2020-24.

Who is behind the massive propaganda push to get this into schools and minds everywhere? Why?

I follow journalist Charlotte Gill who has uncovered a lot of issues on what we’re paying as taxpayers to be told to think. https://www.charlottecgill.co.uk/

edited to add: and now I’m helping to spread the word, I know, I know…

It’s so overblown.

Violence has always existed. Male violence against women has always existed.

Social media is a modern factor. So is parenting, mental health, childhood experiences, drugs, alcohol and any other number of things.

But this fictional piece of work seems to have everyone believing that your average child with average parents/background might go and murder his female classmate because he’s watched too much Andrew Tate.

The influence of on-line material doesn't only cause anger and resentment.

My 15yo ds was silent and upset last summer. During a 5 hour drive he finally let go, telling me he knew he'd never get a girlfriend because girls were "only interested in men who had £80k a year and a BMW." He was genuinely distressed. Thanks Reddit !

I spent the rest of the drive demolishing that theory by pointing out that £80k would mean the top 10% of male incomes so that would mean 90% of British men must be single.....

ds is a mathematician and admitted that wasn't true.

Then we looked at all the boys in the neighborhood with girlfriends - none of them own a BMW of any vintage.

Then I pointed out that the girls he is likely to date, from his fairly academic school, are all perfectly capable of earning their own money.

And finally explained that any girl worth dating would want him to be clean, honest, kind, solvent and hardworking. That if he managed that, he'd never be short of female company.

Sometimes they just need reassurance.

I agree @SammyScrounge. What about the Jamie Bulger case, or Mary Bell even. There was no online radicalisation to blame there. I'd pretty much wager in those cases, it was upbringing and parenting as a significant influencing factor. Many kids who are 'radicalised' are lacking something else in their life. All too easy to want to point the finger at another source and not face the harsh reality.

Violence has always existed. Jack the Ripper went on a spree murdering prostitutes. Nowadays we'd say he'd probably been radicalised and influenced by Andrew Tate and other misogynist figures - but he wasn't, so what do we want to position that as?

Some people are just bad people, and always would be bad people - could be a case of nature not nurture, or in a lot of cases nurture not nature.

Parents need to remember this has happened and more often than just the high profile cases and it could be a child of yours in either situation. Glad the show is being shown in schools too

Whether they know or not is very different to whether they care or not. There will be many parents blissfully ignorant of it happening to their child simply because they’re too distracted by their own TikTok algorithms.

Great TV but super random showing it in all schools!

I think most parents are clueless as to what their kids go through, my parents were and what I did/who I did/who I was with they had no idea, and I think I probably have been about what my kids did. Your kids lie about what they are doing. I hardly know any that don’t withhold details, they are just telling you a glossed over version of the truth.

i know what the friends of my kids have said that they did/were doing, their parents have no clue about.

Sadly a lot of parents didn't understand it or want to watch it. A friend in an all men's choir had heard it was feminist bullsh*t and was quite brusque about not wanting to even see it let alone show it to his kids. Another dad I know was very angry when his teen watched it and hadn't told anyone they were going to. It's odd to me that these male figures haven't seen it yet are very protective about letting their sons be "brainwashed" by it but quite happy for them to be online without supervision...

I don't understand why we can't regulate content better for kids. We have the 9pm watershed on TV and age ratings for films, yet for online content I feel like politicians have just shrugged their shoulders.

Very interesting article on Women's Hour. about 11 minutes in.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0028sk7

"Kyle Clifford was found guilty of raping his ex-girlfriend in an attack in which he murdered her, her mother and her sister. Louise, Hannah and Carol Hunt were murdered two weeks after Louise ended her relationship with him. It has been revealed that prosecutors said "violent misogyny" promoted by social media influencer Andrew Tate "fuelled" his attacks. However, the defence argued this material had too vague a link and was far too prejudicial to be heard by the jury. As we hear this news, concerns rise again about the influence of people like self-described misogynist Andrew Tate, and there are calls for his content to be taken down. Anita was joined by Michael Conroy, founder of Men at Work, which works with teachers and boys in schools to challenge sexist and misogynistic content online and Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism project who campaigns for gender equality to discuss how we can protect our children from, especially boys, from this."

Laura Bates, founder of the Everyday Sexism project, and Michael Conroy, founder of Men at Work, are excellent.