Georgia Harrison has said Nigel Farage’s pledge to scrap the UK’s online safety laws would be ‘the most ridiculous, damaging thing that society could ever imagine’
Georgia Harrison has said scrapping the UK’s online safety laws would be “the most ridiculous, damaging thing that society could ever imagine”.
The reality TV star, who campaigns on women’s rights after being a victim of revenge porn, made the comment after Nigel Farage pledged to ditch the Online Safety Act .
She said she believes social media is “massively influencing the issues of violence against women and girls, the rise in misogyny”. It comes after a Reform UK police chief’s ‘dark heart of wokeness’ claim came under fire.
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“I think social media is massively influencing the issues of violence against women and girls, the rise in misogyny,” she said. “There has always been violence against women and girls but it was always learned in a household often if you saw it yourself, or unfortunately, you were someone who was brought up in a not very nice way.
“Now it’s learned by people who are actually brought up in really nice homes online, and these young men are going down a path that they never would have if they hadn’t started looking up to these role models, who, in fact, are actually just monetising off of really just warping the minds of young people.”
Asked what she made of Mr Farage’s pledge to scrap online safety laws in the UK, the Love Island star said: “I think to scrap the Online Safety Act would be the most ridiculous, damaging thing that society could ever imagine. It’s so important.
“Like the younger generation are spending so much more time on their phones than they are in reality. Like their reality is virtual reality, so it needs to be policed. It needs to be regulated. If anything, I think the laws need to be strengthened.”
Ms Harrison, who is pregnant with her first child, added: “I wouldn’t want to bring my kid up in a world where the internet isn’t regulated. It would genuinely scare the life out of me.”
The sexual abuse campaigner was awarded an MBE for her campaigning work on violence against women and girls, and her work on the Online Safety Act, in June. She has fought for more action on intimate image abuse and deepfakes after her ex-partner Stephen Bear uploaded footage of her without her consent. He was jailed for 21 months in 2023.
In September, Labour announced new changes to the law to force tech firms to clamp down on the sharing of non-consensual intimate images on their platforms.
The offence of sharing intimate images without consent will be classified as the most serious type of online offences under the Online Safety Act, meaning platforms will now have to take steps to proactively remove this material, as well as prevent it from appearing in the first place.
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