Kidron: Big Tech Needs Its 'Tobacco Moment'
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- Beeban Kidron publishes "Users," arguing big tech needs a "tobacco moment" of accountability for its harm to children, and says the book is also "an absolute cry of rage against the political class" for 14 years of failure
- Kidron founded the 5Rights Foundation in 2012 after making a documentary on how smartphones were changing childhood, when her own son and daughter were teenagers
- Kidron secured a 2023 amendment under Rishi Sunak's government banning AI-generated child sex abuse material (CSAM), after a minister refused to look at an AI-generated image of her as an eight-year-old and she threatened to give the story to BBC News at Ten
- Kidron points to tech platforms' suppression of COVID misinformation during the pandemic as proof they can act on harmful content when pressured, asking: "Why the hell is it OK to ask them to do this but not child sexual abuse, not abuse against women, racism?"
- Kidron criticizes Tony Blair's eponymous institute for accepting tech money and cheerleading AI, and says "everyone who has been in a position of power is now on my side of the argument, and regrets they didn't do more when they were actually in power"
- The interview lands amid safeguarding minister Jess Phillips' resignation accusing Keir Starmer of failing to confront big tech, Wes Streeting backing an under-16 social media ban, and Starmer meeting bereaved parents — but Kidron says she no longer fits all the bereaved parents' names in a room
Why it matters: The interview lands as UK politicians from Starmer to Streeting publicly grapple with social media's harm to children, yet Kidron — who secured a 2023 AI CSAM amendment — says the political class has failed for 14 years. She frames tech's reckoning as inevitable, drawing on the tobacco industry precedent to argue for platform accountability, and the book's gossipy insider detail (Elton John calling a minister a moron on TV) signals she's naming names.
