Edward Morello

I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. There is a societal conversation to be had about this behaviour, but there is also a question about regulation and whether the law is appropriate. In December 2025, ongoing bullying forced Isabella to leave Beaminster school in the middle of year 10. She had only recently started her GCSE courses. She moved schools, but the same subject options were not available, so she had to change courses and catch up on four months’ work. Isabella still experiences flashbacks and anxiety in loud and crowded places. Her mother said to me: “I have to live with knowing that the video will be forever available on social media.” Isabella was filmed on a mobile phone. She was not attacked by someone wearing smart glasses, but her experience shows the world we already live in and the consequences of allowing technology to amplify violence and humiliation. If we cannot properly protect victims now, how can we possibly be confident that we will protect them when filming becomes even more discreet? Smart glasses risk creating yet another avenue for covert filming, whether that is secretly recording women in public, filming sexual harassment or capturing assault. The victim may not even know that they have been recorded until the footage appears online. The Youth Endowment Fund’s 2025 “Children, Violence and Vulnerability” survey found that 70% of children had encountered violent content on social media, up from 55% in 2022. More than four in five have seen online conversations about harming specific groups. Among children involved in perpetrating serious real-world violence, 84% had engaged in online discussions about harming particular groups. Twenty-five per cent of children said that violent content had been promoted to them by social media platforms, and just 6% had actively searched for it. Social media platforms’ algorithms are pushing real-world violence, much of it against women and girls, towards children. We know that these companies have the technology and the ability to remove content quicky: when copyrighted music appears in videos, it can be flagged and removed almost immediately because there is money at stake. The question is, why is the same urgency not being applied to violence against women and girls? When a video shows a girl being brutally attacked or a woman secretly filmed, the protections too often fail the people who need them the most. We need a specific criminal offence covering the premeditated filming and distribution of violent attacks where the intent is to humiliate, distress or psychologically harm the victim. The law must recognise that the person holding the camera or wearing the smart glasses can be responsible for deliberately extending the abuse, even if they never physically touched the victim. Social media platforms must be properly regulated, so that they are forced to act immediately when violent footage involving women, girls and children is reported. The platforms must take action against accounts that deliberately distribute it. I hope the Government will act before it becomes too late.