Topic Lifecycle: Dormant
This topic is currently dormant in the news cycle. It was last covered on Tuesday 18 August 2026 and has not appeared in recent broadcasts.
Coverage trend (last 30 days)
How much coverage this topic got from each channel over the past month.
Recent stories
The latest story timelines linked to this topic, newest activity first.
What was reported
A plain summary of this topic, built from the channels that covered it.
The Children's Commissioner for England published a report on children referred to the government's Prevent anti-terrorism programme. The report found that a large number of children were referred, but many had no clear extremist ideology. The Commissioner expressed concern that children are becoming 'intoxicated' by extremism online, and blamed tech companies' algorithms for pushing violent content. She called for a different approach outside Prevent for these children, and for Ofcom to take tougher action against tech companies, including banning them from working with children if they breach rules. The report also referenced the Southport attack as a backdrop. Both channels covered this, with slight differences in figures.
Key Claims by Channel
| Claim |  |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported by a few · 2–4 channels | ||||||
| Referrals increased by 39% compared to the previous year. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Not reported by BBC One | Not reported by Channel 4 | Reported by ITV | Reported by Sky News |
| Around 5,000 children were referred to the anti-terrorism programme last year. | Not reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News | ||||
| 71% of child referrals had no clear extremist ideology and were not taken further. | Not reported by Channel 4 | Not reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News | |||
| 65% of referrals from schools and education providers were sent back without meaningful progression. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by Channel 4 | Not reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News | ||
| Only on one channel | ||||||
| Referrals to Prevent reached a record high of 10,293 in the year to September 2025. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Not reported by BBC One | Not reported by Channel 4 | Not reported by ITV | Reported by Sky News |
| 393 to almost 400 referrals were for children aged 10 or younger. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Not reported by BBC One | Not reported by Channel 4 | Not reported by ITV | Reported by Sky News |
| Of cases passed to the Channel programme, 76% of people were white. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Not reported by BBC One | Not reported by Channel 4 | Reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News |
| The Children's Commissioner wants a different route, not Prevent, for children who are intoxicated by violence. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Reported by BBC One | Not reported by Channel 4 | Not reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News |
| The Children's Commissioner blamed tech companies and their algorithms for pushing violent imagery to children's feeds. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Reported by BBC One | Not reported by Channel 4 | Not reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News |
| The Children's Commissioner wants Ofcom to get tougher with tech companies, including banning them from working with children if they breach the rules. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Reported by BBC One | Not reported by Channel 4 | Not reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News |
| The report referenced the Southport attack, where the attacker had been referred to Prevent three times but was not dealt with because he had no clear ideology. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Reported by BBC One | Not reported by Channel 4 | Not reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News |
| Ministers said they will look carefully at what more can be done to protect children from online extremism. | Reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Not reported by BBC One | Not reported by Channel 4 | Not reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News |
| 79% of Prevent referrals in 2024 were closed without progressing through Prevent. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Not reported by BBC One | Not reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News | |
| Ofcom has fined social media companies £6 million to date. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Not reported by BBC One | Not reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News | |
| 11 to 15-year-olds made up the largest proportion of child referrals, with more than 3,000 children referred. | Not reported by Channel 5 | Not reported by BBC News | Not reported by BBC One | Not reported by Channel 4 | Reported by ITV | Not reported by Sky News |
This is a cross-channel consensus summary, not an objective account. Consensus can be uniformly wrong, or omit what only one channel covered.
Timeline
Where this topic appeared. Cells show coverage time and are darker when there was more coverage.