Andy Phippen

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• PhD
• Professor at Bournemouth University

This chapter presents a critical analysis of the UK’s online safety ecosystem, arguing that it has devolved into a safeguarding dystopia. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, the chapter explores how disjointed interactions between policy makers, educational institutions, social services, and the media create a system that fails t...

This chapter highlights the gap between policy makers’ perspectives and young people’s actual concerns about online harms. Based on a survey of over 16,000 young people, the chapter reveals that youths primarily worry about peer conflict, social media pressures, and distressing current events, rather than the extreme content that often dominates po...

This book examines the evolution of online safety policy for children in the UK and beyond, analysing shifts in legislative efforts from 2017 to 2023, including the enactment of the UK Online Safety Act 2023. Building on prior work, we explore the concept of an online safeguarding dystopia, where well-meaning but restrictive policies limit children...

This chapter explores the role of media-driven moral panics in shaping public perceptions of online safety and influencing policy responses to child online harms. Using high-profile cases such as the “Momo challenge” and concerns around grooming during COVID-19 lockdowns, the chapter illustrates how sensationalist media narratives amplify perceived...

This chapter analyses the political and ideological factors shaping the UK’s Online Safety Act 2023, presenting it as a case study of the rhetorical and legislative landscape around child online safety. Tracing the act’s development from early policy discussions, the chapter critiques a “duty of care” model that centres on platform liability, empha...

This concluding chapter reflects on the systemic flaws and persistent challenges within online safety policy, particularly regarding its alignment with young people’s needs and experiences. It critiques the policy path dependency and regulatory isomorphism that favour punitive and platform-centric approaches over proactive, evidence-based, and yout...

Systems theory approaches are rarely applied in online safeguarding contexts. There is a growing concern that the role of online abuse in domestic abuse and harassment needs to be better understood among adult populations. Organisations who have a duty of care toward staff and other stakeholders should also consider how online abuse is tackled and...

The Headstart Kernow project (https://www.headstartkernow.org.uk/) was one of six Big Lottery-funded Headstart projects across the UK, now in receipt of further public health funding from the local authority. Based in Cornwall, Headstart Kernow had its primary aim to be “Building resilience and mental wellbeing for children and young people” throug...

The Online Safety policy space is now sufficiently developed for us to observe repeated failures to develop legislation that goes any way to prevent online harms and support the victims of online abuse. New policymakers and politicians come forward to propose similar prohibitive measures to ensure harms cannot occur online, with the misguided belie...

Online harms and the resultant safeguarding approaches are a key challenge for those working in the children’s workforce. However, safety narratives and a wish to prevent harm, rather than mitigate risk, have arguably caused a safeguarding environment that is neither mindful of children’s rights nor in their best interests. When supporting adopted...

The emergence of Large Language Models such as GPT3 have caused ripples through academia around the impact of such tools on plagiarism and student assessment. There are claims that these tools will make the traditional assessment approaches obsolete and there has been something of a moral panic across the sector, with some universities already thre...

One of the fundamental challenges in policing teen sexting lies in the efficacy of legislation developed for one purpose now being applied to another. While the focus of this study lies in the legal and social contexts within England, because this is where we conduct the majority of our research, there are similar legislative approaches in other ju...

While there are some who might view teen sexting as a modern, digital phenomenon, and therefore a new challenge to policing and legislation, we argue that while the act might be modern, the motivations centre around young people and sexual agency, risk and risk mitigation. We review consistent patterns in research findings over almost twenty years...

Based upon evidence presented through many years of research, we argue that it is time to try something different and develop policing interventions that are mindful of children’s rights and support, rather than criminalise victims. We further challenge professional biases and highlight the need for evidence-based responses and the failures of proh...

In exploring the grassroots of diversionary intervention, we explore, through discussion with safeguarding and policing professionals, the challenges of supporting young people within a framework of out-of-date legislation and poor national policy, to further highlight the need for new or updated legislation that is youth and victim-centric. Discus...

In exploring the realities of policing teen sexting, we explore the policy developments and changes in policing practice that have followed the emergence of the exchange of intimate images by minors, from the application of the legislation, through the advent of “Outcome 21” interventions, to the more recent diversionary approach afforded by “Outco...

This chapter proposes that the approach adopted in policy and practice around online safeguarding does not reflect best interests and instead centres on prohibition and prevention. We explore whether professionals and practitioners are in position to provide effective support to those in their care in relation to engaging with virtual environments...

Examining subsequent Court of Protection rulings in detail demonstrates both positive and negative impacts of the Re A and Re B cases, highlighting issues in judgments that perhaps set the bar too high for those with capacity issues, how ‘experts’ bring bias to their evidence, and, perhaps most importantly, how the ‘internet and social media’, the...

This penultimate chapter brings together the theoretical, legal and practice-based perspectives to consider how stakeholders with safeguarding responsibilities can best respond to online risk. It is based on a ‘what works’ approach and how adults can have their best interests supported. It builds on the arguments about how technology, such as the u...

The context of online safety, and its policy evolution, has been dominated by protecting children and young people in online spaces. The statutory focus, such as the UK government’s Online Safety Bill, continues with an approach that looks towards prohibition, rather than empowerment, while ignoring an evidence base that calls for inclusive approac...

In concluding, we bring together theoretical, legal and practice-based perspectives to consider how stakeholders with safeguarding responsibilities best respond to online risk based upon our experience of ‘what works’ and how vulnerable adults can have their best interests supported. Building on previous arguments, we consider the role of technolog...

The fundamental legal framework affecting adults who might be at risk as a result of online behaviours lies within the Mental Capacity Act 2005, the Care Act 2014 and statutory guidance which set out responsibilities for professionals working together. With a focus on the second principle of the five set out in the MCA that ‘a person is not to be t...

From the denial of abortion rights in Ireland to sexual violence against British South Asian women in England, the state and its institutions continue to fail women. This book offers a counter narrative to contemporary injustices and a persistent culture of victim-blaming.The academic and activist contributions to this collection explore contempora...

This chapter focuses specifically on the debate on mental health and pro-harm content online. It outlines the increasing concern related to the widespread impact of online harms, mental well-being and reported mental health impacts of viewing harmful content online. The exploration of the complex relationship between mental capacity and mental heal...

From cyberbullying to stalking and transphobia, online harms are damaging lives. Abigail Simmons of Trans Tent, Dr Emma Short of De Montford University and Professor Andy Phippen of Plymouth University dissect the problem and explore possible solutions.

The verification of the Online Resilience Tool, which aimed to provide professionals with a resource to help inform safeguarding responses to disclosed concerns or harms by young people as a result of digitally facilitated behaviours, was conducted through focus group activity with young people and parents of the very young, to determine the placem...

The launch of the Headstart Kernow Online Resilience Tool was accompanied by staff training and an exploration of deployment of the tool among the children’s workforce (predominantly in schools). Training further illustrated the variation in knowledge among professionals and adultist perspectives on harm prevention, rather than harm reduction. Find...

A personal reflection contrasts different aspects of youth work, comparing those with a preventative/prohibitive approach (such as online safety) against more progressive harm reduction approaches (such as drugs and alcohol awareness). Conversations with young people highlight that listening and supporting are more effective messages than “don’t do...

Much policy and debate in the online safeguarding world are driven by adultist views and a lack of youth voice. The Headstart Kernow project adopted an entirely flipped approach to researching how to support young people who had been subject to online harms by starting with a blank page and having the focus any intervention being driven by a youth...

The “online safety” policy area is beset with preventative views and an overreliance and expectation for technology to prevent harm. Current online safety policy has a history of prevention that can be seen to have its roots in controlling access to pornography. Legislation that has arisen in the last ten years has similarly adopted a preventative...

The findings of the Headstart Kernow project have illustrated that there is still a gulf between the intentions of adults with safeguarding responsibilities and their good intentions, and the impact of these upon the young people they wish to support. A key finding in the project is the lack of formal training among professionals and how the result...

“Drawing on academic and practical expertise, Phippen and Street offer a much needed youth-centered and evidence-based approach to safeguarding young people online. Constructive and accessible, but upfront and unapologetic about the need to rethink taken-for-granted assumptions about youth, digital media and risk, this book is required reading for...

The digital world is a place where even the most informed parents and teachers can feel one pace behind children. Bombarded with scare stories about the risks of everyday Internet interactions for young people, those caring for them are frequently left to navigate online minefields more or less on their own. This book is here to help. Two leading e...

Unhelpful assumptions around ‘digital natives’ and assumptions of inherent digital literacies can create problematic scenarios for education providers in the higher education space. While we can show that students are comfortable engaging with digital platforms, and online learning environments are certainly to be welcomed, ad hoc and poorly define...

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a rise in conspiracy theories underpinned by misinformation and “fake news,” much of which is propagated from online sources and disseminated by both real users and bots intent on destabilization. As a result of both the pandemic and the use of scientific information to justify policy choices, some of which impact on...

Image recognition—the use of software to identify images for a specific task—has long been proposed as a solution to addressing some of the more laborious and technical complex tasks such as the triaging of child abuse and exploitation imagery. However, a lack of knowledge and understanding of the capabilities, and limits, of image recognition some...

Concerns over cyberattacks, identify theft, ransomware and online fraud dominate the language of cybercrime and attract considerable public and political attention. Yet within the discourses of online risk, fears surrounding children and young people online remain at the forefront of media and policy debate. In modern society children have become t...

Teen sexting—the exchange of indecent images by minors—has been a tabloid staple and a safeguarding concern for well over ten years. While there are some very real concerns regarding the non-consensual sharing of images beyond the intended recipient and abuse received by victims as a result, a lot of safeguarding guidance and public opinion centres...

Social media storms are a modern-day digital phenomenon, whereby online platforms provide citizens with the opportunity to express their opinions on key issues of the moment which, in turn, raise awareness among friends and followers, who then also express opinions. In this book, social media storms around issues related to online safeguarding, and...

This chapter moves the debate on online harassment from the previously dominant focus on school-age children and teenagers to examine a case of digital harassment and abuse at a UK university. Online harassment in adulthood is not as well recognised in academic and policy arenas with relatively little research to date as greater attention has been...

The Momo Challenge, an entirely fake online phenomenon that exploded into public consciousness in early 2019, was what we might view as a perfect social media storm. The tabloid press endeavoured to raise awareness of the Challenge, which purported to infect young children’s videos on YouTube with upsetting images that then instructed the child to...

Social media storms can be shown to have very real impact upon organisational process and social and cultural change. They can move opinion away from policy and provide opportunity for different viewpoints to be explored away from the mainstream narrative. They are neither a good or bad thing, they are simply a technological facilitation of the zei...

Starting our trajectory through educational settings, this chapter considers the first social media storm discussed in this volume, which garnered public attention on an early year’s organisation and nursery education in the UK. Vanessa George, a mother of two, was charged with seven offences in 2009, including two of sexual assault by penetration...

Written in a clear and lively style, this book examines the breadth and depth of social media storms across a series of carefully crafted case studies. It offers a compelling analysis of how a new risk culture is transforming social relations and advances our critical understanding of a changing, digital world. Based on original empirical research...

There is growing concern, given the growth of the Internet and subsequent online technologies, to ensure that, while children and young people are empowered to engage with the digital world, they can do so in a safe and risk free way. The author presents a juxtaposition of the views of adult and child stakeholders in the field of online safety by e...

Sexting has been a media, and child safety, obsession for as long as the term came to prominence. The author proposes that the media focus on a world where endless teens readily engage in the exchange of indecent images of peers conflicts with the reality of a far more complex but less headline grabbing environment in which young people are growing...

Gaming is often viewed as one of the more negative aspects of children’s online lives, with the blame for its negative impact placed squarely on the violent and sexual content provided in many games. However, even though gut feeling and knee jerk reaction might make this causal link, the author shows that there is little rigorous evidence to show t...