Channel 4 CEO Calls for Urgent Industry Action to Protect Gen Z from False Information Online

Channel 4 CEO Alex Mahon today delivered an impassioned call for urgent joint industry action  and new regulation to ensure young people can find verified, independent news easily on social  media. The call to action follows new Channel 4 research revealing the scale of the challenges  facing gen z in an era where platforms have “publicly announced a wanton abandonment of the  pursuit of truth”.  

Speaking at a joint Channel 4 and Royal Television Society event in London, Alex revealed the findings of Channel 4’s latest landmark study into 13-27-year-olds, which shows a generation  grappling with the idea of truth itself and argued that the way in which gen z learn to judge fact,  fiction and fairness as they grow older may become the defining issue of our age. 

Alex said that the UK is better positioned than most other countries – with “spectacular  advantages” given the world-leading regulatory structure that underpins Public Service Media – but stressed that urgent action is required to ensure this “brilliant, vibrant, creative” generation has  “a Britain they can trust in”. 

She called for wider regulatory action because “global platforms are dominant” and have no legal  requirement to take responsibility for what they publish; and “defenders of truth are always on the  back foot” because “lying is more exciting and fiction travels faster than fact”.  

“We must start thinking about objective truth and validated news as a public good,” Alex said.  “We need to ensure they are present on new platforms, rather than see them as compensating for  a market failure that we regulate for on the old platforms.” 

Alex put forward three major solutions to counter false information online, and how validated,  duly impartial content is identified, promoted and paid for:  

1. Trustmark: Introduce a trustmark as an indicator of factual, trusted accuracy for content  that emerges from professionally produced, regulated media. This could allow tech  companies, their algorithms, advertisers and consumers to distinguish instantly between  what is checked and true and what is not. 

2. Algorithmic prominence on social media: Regulate for PSM content to be prominent on  social media platforms. This is already being implemented for PSMs on TV platforms and  algorithmic prominence could use the same principle to ensure high-quality, trusted  content is boosted – not throttled – on social platforms and rises to the top. Regulators  should also explore mechanisms for a fair revenue share, ensuring PSMs are compensated  for the value and engagement their content generates. 

3. Regulation that supports PSM to shape AI: Train large language models (LLMs) using  validated PSM content. The existing LLMs have been trained on the vast and variable  global internet but outputs could be higher quality if the input included PSM content.  Robust regulation should ensure transparency about what AI models are trained on,  secure fair value and compensation for data owners, and create outputs that are based off  of quality inputs.

The research that informed Alex's speech was delivered by insight agency Craft based on a  nationally representative sample of 3,000 people aged 13-65, and shows the complexity and  contradictions within gen z. In 2024, adults on average spent more than 5 hours a day watching  video, with 34% of that on social platforms and YouTube. For 16-27s, that rises to 64%. Beyond any  other generation, gen z defy easy pigeonholing. The research reveals developing issues, including:  

1. Growing gender divergence: Nearly half of gen z men (45%) believe that “we have gone  so far in promoting women’s equality that we are discriminating against men” and 44%  think women’s equal rights have gone far enough. 

2. Democratic disengagement: More than half (52%) think “the UK would be a better place if  a strong leader was in charge who does not have to bother with parliament and elections”  and one-third (33%) believe “the UK would be a be a better place if the army was in  charge”.  

3. Uncertainty in who and what to trust: Young people have flatter hierarchies of trust  across media, having confidence in posts from friends (58%) and influencers (42%) as  much as – and sometimes more than – established journalism. One-third (33%) trust  alternative internet-based media personalities vs 12% of 28-65s. 

Alex highlighted four ways that the change in consumption by platform impacts what is  consumed: short form means less detail; speed means less context; the algorithms move the  salacious faster to the top of feeds; solo viewing reduces socialisation of points of view, therefore  reducing the likelihood that radical or socially destructive perspectives will be questioned.  

She outlined the dangers arising from the research findings and argued “we are now at a point  where we need to think much more urgently about the risks.” 

“Algorithms designed to elicit anger, surprise or outrage have a devaluing effect on the currency  of reliable information. The business model of the technology giants is at odds with the safety of  our societies,” she warned. “The way in which gen z learn to judge fact, fiction and fairness as they  grow older may become the defining issue of our age. 

“A world where trust declines, truth is not universally accepted, the gender divide is widening and  young people increasingly feel they are missing out is dangerous world,” she went on. “We will lose  the connections that bind us into community. And increasingly disconnect from democracy. The  breakdown in cohesion around a set of shared facts leads to weaker civic society. If we cannot  even agree on the facts, how can we reconcile our interests?” 

Alex closed with a shared challenge: “Gen z are a brilliant, vibrant, creative, bubbling mass of  ideas and deep beliefs. Their collective genius is our future but they need a Britain that they can  trust in. We need to ask what we can do to keep them with us, to weave them into a community that  we who came before them and those who come after them can all share. It is our duty to them and  to ourselves. We should all face these two questions: If not us, who? If not now, when?”