Safe by Default

📣 A campaign for digital environments that protect, not punish, neurodivergent and vulnerable children.We share lived experience, critique failing systems, and push for change.✳️ Blog: saferbydefault.substack.com 🔐 Email: safebydefault@protonmail.com 🌍 bit.ly/safebydefault

Adolescence is one of the most dramatic transitions in human development. For thousands of years societies recognised this with rites of passage and structured paths into adulthood. Today many of those structures have disappeared. New essay: saferbydefault.substack.com/p/when-childho…

We keep asking platforms to remove harmful content faster. But what if the real problem is how digital systems are designed in the first place? A new California bill hints at a shift: From apps → to architecture. #OnlineSafety #TechPolicy open.substack.com/pub/saferbydef…

We keep asking platforms to remove harmful content faster. But what if the real problem is how digital systems are designed in the first place? A new California bill hints at a shift: From apps → to architecture. #OnlineSafety #TechPolicy open.substack.com/pub/saferbydef…

Two teenage parents were arrested on suspicion of possessing an indecent image. Six days later they were dead. Raising questions about how safeguarding systems respond when vulnerable adolescents become the focus of criminal investigations. New piece open.substack.com/pub/saferbydef…

“Red vs Blue” school fight rumours spread across UK social media this week. Schools issued alerts. Police sent patrols. Two arrests followed. Yet the fights themselves may never have been real. What this reveals about youth safety & platform design: open.substack.com/pub/saferbydef…

Reviewing EHCPs at 11 as children enter secondary school risks a support cliff edge at a known stress point. Adolescence + bigger schools + digital exposure is not the moment to weaken protection. saferbydefault.substack.com/p/send-reform-… #SEND #EHCP #Inclusion #EducationPolicy #PublicHealth

⭐️Free Community Journalism Course! You don’t need any previous experience – just be living in Liverpool, Edinburgh or Belfast and interested in your community's green and blue spaces. Online training 6–7:30pm Tuesdaysy for 6 weeks. Apply by 17/02/26 👉greatercommunitymedia.com/groundswell

The UK social media ban debate is moving fast but it’s still asking the wrong question. Bans and “digital literacy” can’t carry the weight of structural gaps in care, education and safeguarding especially in AI-shaped environments. Our latest piece saferbydefault.substack.com/p/beyond-bans-…

We keep talking about adolescent risk as if it’s new. What’s new is the loss of youth clubs, camps, adventure playgrounds and trusted adults outside the family. Those spaces held risk with containment @bespaceaware saferbydefault.substack.com/p/risk-belongi…

New post on what the #764 network reveals about online harm. The core issue isn’t ideology. It’s relational, coercive escalation happening in private digital spaces, before anything fits our categories of #extremism #cse #violence #youth #onlinesafety saferbydefault.substack.com/p/764-and-the-…

Autistic children are not invisible because they are unseen. They are invisible because no part of the system is required to stay with them. Part 9 of Kat Sumner’s series for @safe_by_default on safeguarding, risk, and responsibility. saferbydefault.substack.com/p/navigating-t…

Part 8 of our Safeguarding Autistic Children series is out now. We look at how instability, exclusion and withdrawn support - especially at times like Christmas, increase risk in the environments of autistic youth saferbydefault.substack.com/p/safeguarding…

Marseille’s drug wars show the same pattern we’re seeing in UK county lines: Kids recruited online Fake debts #Violence We need Safe by Default digital protections #cce #Marseilles #crime #DigitalSafety #ChildCriminalExpolitation saferbydefault.substack.com/p/when-childre…

A new blog on why online child safety is failing and why OS-level, developmental safety layers are the missing architecture. #AI isn’t “the answer.” It’s the seatbelt #AustraliaInternetBan saferbydefault.substack.com/p/or-in-a-pinc…

New blog: what the Prosper case shows about digital harm, neurodivergence + system failure. A withdrawn teen lived in an online world of mass-shooter content, CSAM, necrophilia + violent porn, unseen by safeguarding systems. saferbydefault.substack.com/p/what-the-pro…

7/ Read Part 6: saferbydefault.substack.com/p/navigating-t… #Autism #Safeguarding #SEND #Prevent #YouthJustice #SafeByDefault #ChildrenFirst

6/ We’re calling for safeguarding that is: ✔ relational ✔ trauma-informed ✔ neurodivergence-aware ✔ contextual (on- & offline) ✔ rooted in protection, not punishment ✔ supported by Safe-by-Default digital design

Part 6 Published today. Thread