Adolescence—the ‘documentary’ that isn’t—is once again being used to make the case for online censorship. Whitehall’s director of media regulator Ofcom Melanie Dawes pointed to the Netflix drama to show how big tech is not fulfilling its child protection responsibilities.
Like erstwhile communications authority Ofcom itself, Adolescence appears to be experiencing mission creep. Speaking on BBC Radio’s Today programme on Thursday, April 24th, career civil servant Dame Dawes declared:
I think in the end what’s happening here and it’s not just in the UK, it is just a change in how people are seeing all of this. Whether it’s the drama Adolescence and that’s brought to life some of these problems of misogyny, pornography, violent content on our kids’ internet feeds.
If she is correct and there is a growing perception of these problems, could it be down to the authorities’ continuing misrepresentation of a fictional narrative? Isn’t there a word for this—misinformation, perhaps?
