Children are at risk of being radicalised through social media unless preventative action is taken, a Scottish Labour MP has warned. Gregor Poynton, chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Children's Online Safety, claimed tech giants needed to do more to prevent young people seeing inappropriate content. Mr Poynton, the MP for Livingston, said children were being exposed to a range of unacceptable content, with a gap between the rhetoric of big tech, and the safety measures they actually put in place. Public debate on the issue intenstified recently with the Netflix drama Adolescence, about a 13-year-old boy who becomes radicalised online and kills a schoolgirl. The drama was praised Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who recommended it be shown in schools. Mr Poynton’s intervention came as a teachers union, a child’s safety non-profit and Mumsnet also spoke about about the risks from social media. Speaking to Scotland on Sunday, he said: “They somewhat talk a reasonable game when it comes to children's online safety, but when it comes to it, are they putting the money and especially spending their profits, frankly, on making the platform safe? Are they taking down content quick enough? Are they stopping content going up in time? Are they really doing all the things they need to do to keep our children safe online? I don't think at the moment they are. “This is often about the algorithms that the social media giants are pushing, because of them it’s all about eyeballs and clicks, because that’s how they generate their money, through advertising, but some of the manosphere stuff and Andrew Tate is incredibly harmful.” Mr Poynton had previously written to X (formerly Twitter), owned by Elon Musk, demanding the immediate removal of a violent video linked to the killing of three girls in Southport near Liverpool. The MP for Livingston was one of dozens of Labour MPs, most of them men, who joined forces earlier this year to help combat the “manosphere”, with positive messages about fatherhood and the promise of better paternity rights. Addressing online content, he added there was a risk of young people being radicalised, with the amount of misogyny content online rapidly increasing. He said: “That’s not going to be the majority I'm sure, but there is a minority at risk, particularly with the misogyny that comes through. That initially was at a fairly low level, but there is now a huge level of misogyny, and that sort of day-to-day misogyny is coming through from that manosphere. “The manosphere stuff really is incredibly dangerous, because it’s not every video all the time, but over a period of time, it can have a really negative effect.” Last month polling from the NASUWT, the Teachers’ Union found nearly two-thirds of teachers in Scotland felt social media negatively impacts pupil behaviour. Female respondents reported sexism and misogyny as among the types of abuse they receive from pupils. Mr Poynton warned child abuse was also a problem online, but insisted the UK Government was making efforts to tackle it. The Scottish Labour MP said: “For too long, abusers have hidden behind screens, exploiting technology to commit vile crimes while our laws struggled to keep pace. The new laws the UK Labour Government is bringing in are a bold and necessary step to close that gap, ensuring we tackle child sexual abuse both online and offline and bring those who traffic in this appalling material to justice. “Nothing, including the tech companies themselves, should get in the way of keeping children safe. The time is up for abusers hiding behind keyboards. They must know that our law-enforcement organisations will find them and stop them.” Discussing a lack of safety measures, Mr Poynton explained there had been an “explosion of social media and access to smartphones”, without any thought into the consequences. Mike Corbett, National Official for Scotland at the NASUWT, said: “NASUWT is very concerned about the impact of social media on some young people. Our recent Behaviour Survey makes clear that female teachers are on the receiving end of abuse more often than their male counterparts, with some of this seemingly linked to online influence. “Whilst schools can and should be addressing such poor behaviour by applying appropriate and serious consequences, this is clearly a problem that goes way beyond the school gates and requires national and, indeed, international action to properly address it.” Research from Mumsnet earlier this year showed that 80 per cent of parents back a ban on social media for kids under 16 - and more than half would be more likely to vote for a political party that pledged to enforce a ban. Justine Roberts, Mumsnet founder and CEO, said: "The effect of smartphones and social media on our kids is a public health crisis, and thus far government just doesn't seem to have grasped the scale or seriousness of the problem. "It's not just about problematic content - as concerning as that is. The very nature of addictive-by-design social media apps negatively affects children's still-developing brains - regardless of what they're actually doing and seeing. Tech companies have designed algorithms to hook kids in and make them addicts. "Parents on Mumsnet are crying out for the government to act, and we know the majority of them back a total ban on social media for under 16s as well as a ban on smartphones in schools. This isn't a moral panic - many young people themselves are also desperate for greater protections. At the moment, parents and children are standing alone against the might of Big Tech - we need the government to have their back." Interim Internet Watch Foundation CEO Derek Ray-Hill said: “There is an overwhelming volume of sickening child sexual abuse material being shared online all over the world. Just last year, IWF analysts uncovered more than 290,000 webpages containing images and videos of children being abused, a five per cent increase on 2023. “It is imperative that the UK’s Online Safety Act, which places responsibility on tech platforms to minimise harm, delivers effective regulation that ensures they take the necessary steps to tackle the spread of this criminal imagery. Children’s safety online should be paramount.”