The Netflix drama “Adolescence”, which has sparked widespread debate about the toxic and misogynistic influences young boys are exposed to online, is to be shown in UK secondary schools, officials said on Monday.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who met the creators of the show alongside charities and young people at his Downing Street office, called the move “an important initiative” which would help start conversations about the content teenagers consume online.
Starmer said he had watched the drama — in which a 13-year-old boy stabs a girl to death after being radicalized on the internet — with his own teenage children and that it had “hit home hard”.
The internet and social media meant “ideology” can now be “pumped directly into the minds of our children”, he added.
“Adolescence”, which was released on March 13, follows the aftermath of the schoolgirl’s fatal stabbing, revealing the dangerous influences boys are subjected to online and the secret meaning youngsters are giving to seemingly innocent emojis.
Maria Neophytou of the UK’s children’s charity NSPCC said the meeting with the prime minister had been a “critical milestone”.
“The online world is being polluted by harmful and misogynistic content which is having a direct impact on the development of young people’s thinking and behaviors. This cannot be allowed to continue,” she said.
The series has resonated with an audience increasingly disturbed by a litany of shocking knife crimes committed by young people and the misogynistic rhetoric of influencers like Andrew Tate.
Earlier this year it emerged that Axel Rudakubana, a British teenager who stabbed to death three young girls in a knife rampage last July, had viewed footage of another high-profile stabbing just before the attack.
Australia notably banned access to social media for all under-16s late last year.
“Adolescence” also highlights the “incel” (involuntary celibacy) culture of males who feel unattractive to the opposite sex and harbor a hatred of women.
Netflix’s vice president of UK content Anne Mensah said the series had “helped articulate the pressures young people and parents face”.
“Adolescence” had 24.3 million views in its first four days, making it Netflix’s top show for the week of March 10-16, according to the entertainment industry magazine Variety.
New UK rules requiring technology firms to tackle illegal content on their platforms — including extreme pornography and child sex abuse material — came into force on March 17 as part of the government’s Online Safety Act, but were dismissed as “timid” by critics.
Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly died aged 14 in November 2017 after viewing harmful material on social media, said the approach had been dominated by media regulator Ofcom’s “fear of legal challenge and their eagerness to placate the tech companies”.
“Worried parents across the country are dismayed by yet more half measures,” he added.
“Adolescence” writer Jack Thorne said he hoped a solution could be found to the issues raised by the series.
“It’s about other people … being given the opportunity to have conversations they haven’t had before and that they should have had that might lead to policy change and things being made better for our young people,” he told Sky News after the meeting.
© 2025 AFP
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