Everything Is Content - Hot Girl Trademarks, Anti-Nude Tech & Should EIC Ban Bonnie Blue?

Episode Date: June 12, 2026

Hello EICrystals! This week on the podcast- shocking sex stunts, digital literary drama, surveillance for safety. Plus: a suspicious vibrating sound, Oenone losing her voice & Ruchira filing paperwork. First up- provocateur and viral adult creator Bonnie Blue is back in the headlines after turning her baby shower into... well, a very different kind of shower. The 27-year-old has begun releasing footage from Saturday's event, where 112 attendees reportedly took part over the course of six hours. Is this an adult entertainer exercising her bodily autonomy or a huge safeguarding concern for her unborn baby? And are we complicit for covering it? Let us know in the comments/ our DMs if you think this should be the last time we say the words Bonnie or Blue on the pod.Next up- we know that hot girls read, but do hot girls also file trademarks for widely used phrases they didn't invent? Last week business owner and BookTok creator Allie Mitrovich announced (in a now-deleted post) that she had officially secured the registration for the phrase "Hot Girls Read". We track the backlash, the outcome and ask why everyone online thinks they have to be a business owner.And finally: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has announced that tech companies must introduce in-built software that stops underage users from taking or sharing nudes. Apple and Google have both been given until September to comply or will face legislation to force them to do so. Is this a major win for child safety or a sly attack on all of our most fundamental privacy rights?We hope you luuuurve today's episode because we luuuurved making it for you. If so, please leave us a rating or a review or share us on social media or in the group chat. O, R, B xRuchira's been loving The Invite (out July 3rd) and Backrooms, Beth's been loving Two Weeks In August on BBC iPlayer and The Comeback on NOW TV and Oenone's been loving Main Characters by Bobby Palmer (out July 2nd!) with special mention to Isaac and the Egg.------------------Lad Bible - Bonnie Blue shares photos from 'disgusting' baby shower stuntYouTube - "I'm not responsible for 13-year-olds...' Bonnie Blue x Shelagh Fogarty LBCPeople - A Content Creator Filed to Trademark 'Hot Girls Read,' Then the BookTok Community Erupted OnlineLit Hub - A content creator tried to trademark "Hot Girls Read." BookTok clapped back.NPR - 'Very demure, very mindful' trademark issue is 'handled,' TikTok influencer saysSubstack - Hot Girls Don't Weaponize Trademarks Against Small Businesses: The Book Community Might Have a Greed ProblemPodcasts - Matilda Djerf on Creator-Led Brands, Secrets Behind 300% Growth and Tough Lessons in Entrepreneurship Good Noticings - Patagonia vs. Pattie GoniaThe Guardian - Starmer gives tech firms ultimatum to block explicit images on children’s phonesThe Times - Tech bosses threatened with prison if they fail to protect childrenBig Brother Watch statement Signal statement GOV UK - New plans to stop children taking, sharing or viewing nude imagesCBS - Musk fires outsourced content moderators who track abuse on TwitterBBC - Australia has banned social media for kids under 16. How does it work?BBC - Porn site traffic plummets as UK age verification rules enforcedBBC - Mandatory digital ID launch called 'a fiasco' by scrutiny committeeLad Bible - Sexual offences lawyer warns of 'explosion' of illegal images as ChatGPT plans adult content Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth. I'm Ruchera. And I'm Anoni. And this is Everything is Content, the podcast that covers TV, film, internet trends, literary drama, tech, politics, and so much more. We're the steely umbrella shielding you

from the onslaught of content. This week on the podcast, new Bonnie Blue antics, a controversial literary drama and the UK government's divisive new age verification move. Follow us on Instagram at Everything is ContentPod and make sure you hit

follow on your podcast player apps so you never miss an episode. Oh, what a delight to be able to ask you this question. What have you both been loving this week? I first want to know how Doolieper's wedding was. Oh, I can't tell. I was obviously signed an NDA. No, no. I was actually at a wedding in Portugal and it was, it might as well have been Dio Lepas.

It was so fucking good. It was, I felt like Dio Lepa. I was on holiday. I did not look at my phone. I was drinking. I was smoking cigarettes, which I do think Dula people promotes it too much, but I was doing it. Had a lot of faprospits, a lot of rosé, a lot of crying, a lot of singing. Oh.

And I'm still, have many days since I got back, haven't drunk, I'm still kind of dead. You have a lovely husk to your voice, which I know it's not good to promote it, but you sound lovely, I have to say. Well, you should be glad this is what it sounds like. When I got home on Monday, I called someone and I went, and then I was like, and it's just like nothing came out. that I've been trying not to talk too much. So I was like, oh dear, not good for podcasting. It's the singing, I want to say, rather than the siggies.

I saw that video of you singing. I was like, you could be, do Leap 2.0. Now she's kind of like, well, she'd probably gone on a honeymoon, which will be like 19 holidays in one. But then she said she might want to have a baby. So you could actually step into her shoes. There's a gap in the market. I used to be a really good singer when I was younger,

and I'm sure it's all the vaping that's made that go away. But there was this amazing band over the three days. And I was obsessed with them. I kept singing really near them. And they kept being like, you should sing with us. Anyway, I eventually gave in on like day three of the wedding when I was already wasted. And the music was so loud I couldn't hear myself. And I sang Valerie.

And when I got off, everyone was like, that was amazing. Then one of my best friends who filmed it and we watched the next day. And I'm just shouting, literally just shouting. So that's why when I posted it, I had to put the song over. But literally all the family members at my friend's wedding were like, wow, you've got such a beautiful voice that I, for the rest of the evening, thought I'd been like amazing. And then I listened to her back and it was awful. I love you. just being like, don't make me sing, I'm going to sing.

Yeah, one protest. And then you were up on the stage. I know it. Yeah. I know really don't go vocal checks. No, no, no. Gorgeous. That's so nice.

I'm so glad. Yeah, it was so nice. Okay, tell me what have you guys been up to since having gone? Oh, sweet F.A. Yeah, no, nothing to report, but I do have two recommendations and I'm actually prepped today. So the first one is, when I tell you, Olivia Wilde, has redeemed herself as a director. Have you guys heard of the invite? yet heard of it. So I got to go to a screening when I was at South by Southwest and oh my gosh,

it's so funny. I think it's going to be such a hilarious film for people to watch and I think it's going to redeem her and I think everyone's going to feel really bad because let me give you the premise. Seth Rogan, Olivia Wilde, a couple. They are snippy. They are like barbing each other constantly. They invite the couple upstairs, Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz who are this sexy, vivacious, flirty couple. They come down. It's this like clear distinction of two couples versus two couples until the proposition of a gang bang comes up. I watched the trailer for this. You've just reminded me. And I remember thinking it looked so good and then I just wiped it from my memory because I can't remember when I watched that.

But okay, I'm glad it is good because it's one of those ones where the trailer was so good that I was like, maybe the trailer is the movie. No, I, so many laughs, so many really sweet tender moments, just like such a dry comedy. And I didn't realize Rashida Jones, wrote the script. So it also has, you know, like funny bones just all through it. So worth a watch. You guys have to see it when it comes out. Seth Rogen is that guy. I mean, I did see he was recently on Stephen Bartlett, which I was like, that just does not make sense in my brain. Those two together. I haven't listened to or watched it yet. But he really is that guy. I think he is perfect for a role like this. And I do something in me just wants to love Olivia Wild. I loved her in house. I really have

not. I don't have beef with her. I did see a poster for a film called I Want Your Sex, which she stars in with, I want to say Cooper Hoffman, is that son of Seymour? No, son of, you know who I mean, Philip Seymour, um, where she's like straddling him in all leather. And I was like, I think we are having kind of wild renaissance. I think everyone's went a bit cuckoo about Harry Stiles and whatever else and she was. She said some things, whatever. I do think it's now time. She is very, very talented. And I'm excited. Agree. Clear the deck. Give her another chance. Okay. The second thing I am bringing to the table is backrooms, which is a very different vibe. It's an A-24 horror.

And I generally thought the only storyline of it would be that people just get lost in the back rooms of a warehouse. And it's not that. There's a bit more to it. But it's really quite horrifying in a lower-level way than say something like hereditary. I think even if you hate horror films, you could watch something like this. It's quite violent. I will say that to be fair. But aesthetically, it's like that buttercup yellow, loads of rooms like that.

So it's kind of just gorgeous to watch as well. You guys in your horror, I just kind of completely forget. It's the genre. is a genre. I'm really excited for this one. But I do, I know what you mean, but I do think this, everything I see on it, it seems to sit kind of outside of a lot of other horror. I think because it's so expansive horror. Like this seems to be just like eerie, strange, uncanny, what the fuck's going on. My cousin said it was kind of based on, you know, maybe it's trauma, but maybe it's also this, maybe it's also that versus like also horror is text or chainsaw mask. So I do

think there are subgenres that maybe you would really love. I agree. I think it's because famously, as in I've told this story on the podcast, as a child, I was obsessed with things like Texas jinks or massacre. And the hills have eyes. And then I just sort of, I left it there. You left it there. You peaked too early at like age six. Yeah.

No, I did. I think I was trying to watch the access assistant like four. My mom came and was like, whoa. Oh, wow. That's a lot. I read of backrooms that it was originally a 4chan post. It was kind of like internet law. This director came pastence who famously is 20 years old.

And everyone's like, what the fuck? He's about to do it. one I think and there's so many funny memes about it. But it's kind of like embedded internet law that this brand new baby director has made this incredible film. The whole thing, it just feels like, oh, we don't see this often. These different elements, like internet elements, kind of original IP, really young director actually getting a chance to direct something.

I don't think he's an epic baby, but if not, apparently he's like preternaturally talented. I think you'll love it. And also, I do think A24 is really good at horror. And they seem to pick up on these ideas, which are kind of born from online law. because I watched Barbarian a few weeks ago, and that is, I think, based on that kind of internet story of an Airbnb where it turns out somebody was living in the basement and there was like this whole extra person.

I love that from so much. It's so good, isn't it? So I think they've got good historical references for this. But anyway, what have you been loving? So I first want to say, I think this was, Ruchere, your recommendation. You'd watch one or two episodes of two weeks in August on BBC. Did you finish it? No, but I am further through and I still really love it.

Great, because I did finish it. I watched the whole thing in like a week. Very good. It's about this group of like middle class friends, like kind of like early middle age or like probably actually maybe like early 40s. I couldn't remember. All gone holiday together. Two couples and then two single friends and kids go away to Greece. There's all of this like bubbling unsaid kind of resentment problems, things that had gone on, flirtations. It's basically, I've said this after it finished. It's basically like a summer read of a TV series like silly, splashy bits you can. I have. Everyone is a bad and unawing person, but you're kind of like, I'm having a great time. I really, I think it's actually properly decent and the cast is very good. It's actually very worth the watch, I think. I have been desperate to watch this ever since you recommended it, Ritura, but then I was like, I better watch with my partner. But then he said the other day, he said he really wanted to watch Rivals and he hadn't

watched season one. So now I'm doing the thing. So we're watching, I'm watching with my partner, The Handmaid's Tale, which was obviously like got a thousand seasons. And we're watching Rival Season 1 so that I can watch Rival Season 2. Oh my God. So much commitment. So I keep having to show this like backlog of TV shows.

I know so I haven't watched two weeks in August. But wait, oh sorry, Beth, do you have another one? My proper one is it's a TV show called The Comeback starring Lisa Cudrow. Have you watched this either of you? Or I'm sure you've heard of it. I haven't watched, but I mean to watch it. Same. Because apparently it's really good.

I've been hearing about this because a season of it came out this year and I went, oh, it's weird. I've not heard of this. Third season, all right, it must have just passed me by in the 2020s. I clicked on to have a little look. The first season was in 2005. So right after really, friends had wrapped. Lise Kudra had created or co-created the show called The Comeback, which is about,

it's like found footage slash sort of mockumentary style of this sitcom actress, Valerie Cherish, who is going for this role on a new sitcom. She sort of had a, she had a really popular show before. And the concept is she has signed up. When she gets the job, she's also contracted to do this in-home reality TV series, which she is like really tried. She's constantly like, Jane, cut, cut that of all the humiliating stuff. But obviously none of it is cut from the final product. She plays this. So she's kind of been like approaching middle age. Still really gorgeous and talented.

But she's got younger co-stars. She cannot keep up. Fame is a completely new beast. And she's trying to not come across badly on telly, but she does. It's so funny. It really feels so ahead of its time for 2005, which makes sense that it was cancelled after one series. It didn't get loads of viewers, but had a really big cult following.

And so in 2014, they brought back eight episodes. Limited series says we're going to do another limited series. Brilliant. Fans loved it. So this year, May, they did a proper final third series. So basically it was three decades, three critically acclaimed series, Lisa Kudrow playing the same character. I think Lisa Kudro, I always overlook as comic talent

because for so long you're like Phoebe, yes, she's funny, she's physically funny, but she's Phoebe. And then you see her playing any other character. She's her timing is good. Her facial expressions are so fine. I think she and who's the daughter from Hacks, Caitlin Olson, or even someone like Regina Hall in scary movie, like comic actresses who know who are just like leagues and leagues above.

I think this is such a good show. I think final thing, it feels like watching this, this walk to the office could run. So Michael Scott could, in the US office, it feels like, oh, she did this first. Oh, amazing. Oh, I'm so going to watch that. It's on Now TV as well. I really want to watch that. Did I tell you that she, when I went to that Glitzy HBO party, I was that she stood behind

her and Steve Corral. Stop. Yeah. They were literally like inches from me. And I think, and I was living. And Livy was like, I really want to go say hi to her. And I can't remember if she did now. I don't think she did.

But we did, but we did think about running up to her. But we're like, you're meant to pretend like, you're meant to be there at those parties. So you're not really meant to be like fan girl. And I'm meant to be like, oh, who's that? I'm like starstruck, but I wasn't if I'm starstruck in second degree. This is so weird. I don't know. I never get this even in person.

I just love her so, so much. Yeah. She's amazing. She looked incredible as well. And Noni, what have you been loving? Okay. So I really wanted to watch two weeks in August. but as I explained, I was like, right, I've got to park that.

So what I did start watching was, and I think Ritio, you started watching this as well, but four seasons series two with Steve Corral. Have you watched, did you watch the second series? The first series we all raved about. Four seasons, yes, yes, yes, yes. I was like, Ritura, you have seen this? Did you not, did you not say you started? Or maybe you just said there was a second season out.

Yeah, I have, no, I've not started yet. Okay, so I'm like three episodes in. It's quite depressing this one. I don't think it's got as much sparkle as the first one, but I'm going to persevere it. It's good. It's kind of taken a more serious. tone. I absolutely loved the first series. I am kind of enjoying it, but yeah, I wonder if it's not as good on this one, but I'm going to persevere. And then the main thing I've been loving,

although unlike Beth, who managed to read seven books on holiday, I got about 30 pages in because every time I picked it up, one of my friends would be like, should we get a pinoclade and I just completely thought what I was doing. But I've been reading main characters by Bobby Palmer, who famously wrote a book called Isaac and the Egg, which I don't know if either of you read, but it's like a gorgeous, like magical realism story about this guy who finds an egg in a forest. It's amazing. And the egg is like alive. But it's not even like an egg. It's like a little animal. It's amazing. Anyway, this book is completely different vibes. Very naturalistic. It's about this young woman called Clara, who's like an aspiring film director and a guy called Seb who's like a model

aspiring actor, but kind of, they're both kind of flailing and it starts in the early noughties and they have like this off chance meeting. And she's in a relationship at the time. So they go on this one day and then he never hears from her again because she's actually got a boyfriend. The story crosses like 20 years. I haven't got that far, because as I said, every time I picked it up, got cocktail, forgot.

But I'm really enjoying it so far and love that it's like, because it's set in the early naughty at the beginning, everyone's on their Black Breeze. It's very kind of like indie slees. He's the musicians.

He's like, oh, there's mates who are in a band. It's really cute, but the reviews are telling me that it's devastating, which is quite stressful because I don't know. I know.

Apparently it gets really stressful. But it's a good one. It's not out yet. I have got a proof. It's out in July. But so far, loving. And I'm hoping now that I'm on TerraFama English soil and I'm not going to be drinking so many cocktails,

I will finish it in the next couple of days. I've got this on pre-order. I was like, I swear I've got a book like this coming. So I have, I'm actually really anticipating this one. But maybe if you read it first, tell me when it gets really sad and I'll just do what I do when I watch Titanic, which is just turn it off. So they're just based on a cruise.

I go, oh my God, they fall in love. I think I've seen the beginning of Titanic dozens of times. I've seen the end, maybe six my whole life. That is so funny. But yes, I don't like. actually really excited for this book. So did neither of you ever read Isaac in the air? Because that was like Bobby Palmer's first book, you should both read it. No, but I saw that everyone raved about it, but I think because I couldn't work out what it was about, I just always forget to pick it up.

Because, you know, with most books, you're like, oh, I'm feeling this kind of genre, this kind of this. So I always forget to read it, but you've just sold it to me. So I do, I will read it. Maybe we can read this while we, while we wait for this to come out next month, not long at all, read that and then I'll be banging the mood. Yeah. It's one of those that, like, almost Almost when you know it's about, I know what you mean, it can be a bit off-putting. But then you read it and you just succumb and you're like, oh, I got so emotionally attached to the egg. Oh. Yeah.

Provocator and viral only fans creator Bonnie Blue is back in the headlines after she invited men to have sex with her for her baby shower. Although the content creator previously shared a fake rumor that she was pregnant last year, she now appears to actually be pregnant and has sparked even more backlash for her latest stunt, which she calls a golden shower baby shower. A quick recap, Bonnie Blue gained notoriety for her stunt of sleeping with a thousand men in one day and even became the subject of a Channel 4 documentary, A Thousand Men and Me, the Bonnie Blue story. And now the 27-year-old has begun releasing footage from the Baby Shower event, which she hosted last Saturday, where 112 attendees reportedly took part over the course of six hours. And according to Bonnie, guests arrived in groups between five and ten people throughout the day.

Bonnie Blue has been described as a rage beta, and this appears to be the most provocative stunt she's pulled yet by far. I realised I'm not setting women back, I'm just setting myself back, she said in a TikTok video shared last month. It's going to set me back a couple of years. It's pretty disgusting. And if I'm saying it's disgusting, then dot, dot, dot. It's taking something very wholesome, like the pregnancy, and mixing it with something which is very much out there, even for the industry I'm in. She also told US Weekly that she has clear boundaries between what she will sexualise as a pregnant woman, telling the magazine, I want to be very careful about not sexualising the child. So it's trying to get the right balance of getting people involved, but not having the baby sexualised. Pregnancy can be sexualised, that's fine because that's referring to me. But there'll be a very strict line, especially once the baby's here of what's shown and how much is shown.

But there's more. Speaking to Lab Bible, she shared her next move is to auction off her baby's name. And she said, yes, I'd like to auction off the baby's name to a fan. I've let them breed me, urinate on me, and I'd like to continue their involvement throughout my pregnancy, also including the baby name. I mean, I'm kind of horrified and speechless. I didn't really think. I'd kind of disengaged with Bonnie after the documentary.

I have to say, I kind of thought, I don't miss sending my business anymore. I don't really want to say her name. I feel like we're giving her too much airtime. And I almost thought that at that point, she had kind of reached the crescendo of the wave in terms of how much rapidating she can do and so this is kind of knocked me off the edge because I wasn't expecting it how how are you both feeling I mean it's just nuts

I know what you mean I genuinely almost like you know when you can remove a word on social media and just kind of bound that word so you don't see it I'd kind of done that with Bonnie Blue so I was so out the loop until you guys brought this to me and then I just typed in her name and all the stories came up and I was like fucking hell it's just so outrageous and so I don't even know what words to use because it's so challenging for me to wrap my head around all of this. She's, you know, she's a trend. It feels like she is very of her time and surely there will be a moment where she just kind of falls off

because you can't keep that level of outrage up. But I really think she is a professional at this outrage business. I don't think she will let go of fame and infamy very easily. It's just proving to me how much she is able to provoke us time and time again. I try to see her now as a sort of like Steve Coogan, Alan Partridge, she's Tia Billinger, Bonnie Blue. Bonnie Blue is her public alter ego. It is the character that she plays and she performs as Bonnie Blue more and more. And just as, you know, Steve Coogan steps on set, he's Alan Partridge. He appears on the news with Alan Partridge.

I think she is doing the same thing. And these stunts very much as Bonnie Blue, but still, this is a real baby. And I think auctioning off, things like auctioning off the baby's name to a fan, suggesting that she's going to live stream birth to fans, it is involving an unborn child in sexual publicity stunts. I think that is, to me, that is the boundary, that is the hook for her marketing is, I'm pregnant there is a baby. That, to me, totally ethically, unsound and exploitative. And even, I don't know if you watch the LBC interview with Sheila Foggety, she acknowledges pregnancy is a lot, is a big fetish for a lot

of people. And so it's, I think that is actually, it just crosses that line for me as it's not incidental that there's a baby there. That's the whole point. That's the central reason that men would have been interested in doing this and interested in naming the baby and interested in watching the birth because of who Bonnie Blue is because of who Tia is. And I think whatever, do what you want, whatever fantasies you have involving adults, I think it's very clear from our porn episodes and our only fans episodes, like, that is not our concern. But this, I think, in a world that's already so unsafe for children, this is what our mother's decided on. I have really, this has pushed me beyond the edge, I think. And there is porn involving pregnant women and there always has been.

I think it's like the, I think it's really complicated in terms of her, because I never want to talk about the way that women perform sex work because often sex work can be really a survival thing. But for Bonnie Blue, what I really don't understand, I often think this about a lot of really rich people is whether or not she's lying. But there's points when she said she's making like six million pounds a month or something. I kind of thought she might retire. I really thought her long-term game plan was she was going to make all this money and then just disappear off the face of the earth and maybe kind of like change her identity. But this baby as well, because it's going to be in the public eye. I mean, I don't know how well she'll be able to hide it. It's just traumatizing to know that

your mother did this to you. Like even though she's right, obviously pregnant women can engage in sexual activities and it's not sexualizing a baby. But what she's doing is exactly what you said, Beth. It's that taboo of it. It's the king of it. It's the fact that she knows that she can gain something from it. And it's starting to feel to me just like inhumane. The other thing that I've seen, and I don't know how realistic if she's actually doing shots, but there's tons of videos of her on holiday, doing like shots of vodka at parties, doing loads of shots with men. It looks like she's pouring the shots out of vodka bottles. I suppose she could obviously be drinking like shots of water.

But it does to me at this point feel like a crisis. And I don't want to be like clutching my pals. But I have seen lots of comments on social media where people are saying like we need to involve social services. Like this just doesn't seem like someone that is making good decisions as a pregnant woman as a mother to be. And I maybe that feels like too far. But I actually have got to that point where I think like this can't be right.

How are we all standing by and watching this happen? even if, you know, some of her comments kind of sound ever so slightly level-headed, I just don't think in practice she is actually doing that. I think what you said, Beth, about her being a character is right, and I think that is correct. But then even taking her at her best, which is she is game planning, she is faking a lot of these scenarios, it's still using her unborn child as content. And as we've spoken about with family YouTubers, that has huge ramifications for the future of that child, there are children who are so deeply traumatized from only briefly appearing on camera and

are only starting to talk about how that has affected their lives for years to come and maybe they will never get past that because it has irreparably changed their psyche. Her as a person, she is so difficult to understand and she's so difficult to even grapple with, I can't even bear to go into that topic. I can only even just about touch the fact of using an unborn child as content and weighed into that because it's so, all of it's just so messy and so sticky and so difficult. I just find her exhausting and I find the constant need for headlines and attention and provocation exhausting. There is a line when it comes to what we are observing and allowing. And I do think regardless of the stunts, because I think that is just online content. I think what we are

watching is the normalization of using an unborn child as content. And that's, that's the thing that is, I think, black and white. Yeah. And it's also like the content means this unborn child, which will become a human, become an adult has a digital footprint before they've even hit earthside and it's a very loaded, very difficult digital footprint. And that does feel really something to saddle your child with that really a parent shouldn't, you know, should be so clear cut of no. Protection means digital protection. It means in real life protections. And she's, a lot of her press is about how much money she has and how she's going to protect the child. And so, you know, they're going to be on a private jet. And she's like, well, it doesn't matter. They're going to be protected in all the ways.

They can have the best healthcare, the best access to education. And I think you cannot boil down on a child's safety and dignity just to those things. And that's really telling that a lot of her press is focused on that. And it's interesting also. She always goes on like, oh, you disgusted. She's saying that to Sheila, she's kind of like, she really banks on this disgust. You know, she's like, you discussed the idea of a golden shower.

And Sheila's like, no, I'm concerned. And it's this like plausible deniability of like to act as if all the detractors are like haters, their prudes. They're kind of grossed out by saucy, sexy things. It's very disingenuous. It genuinely does not flap, I think, any of us, the idea that men and women like to weigh on each other. They're like, it's 2026, who cares?

Adults can do as they please. But if you look at the press photos from this event, there's like nappy is hung in the background. Baby paraphernalia hung on the walls, like feet away from where she is going to be weed on. That's the context. The context is it was baby paraphernalia. It's not the wee.

And I do think that's a way that she often detracts, but it's very disingenuous. Even if you protect a child, all it takes is one child at school when that child is seven or eight years old to see them with Bonnie and for them to have seen... Because this content is going to live online forever. It only takes one person recognizing Bonnie to be their mother

for that child to then be informed that they're in these videos. Like, I don't actually know how she would protect her child from at some point in the future signing out about this content. Like, you'd have to be... No one can scrub anything from the internet. Think about all the famous people that have had sex tapes leaked, that can't get them back, that really struggle with that, worry about the implications of that on their children.

Like you, Beth, I find it really disingenuous. this idea that she thinks there is a separation between her and her baby because it's not, and she's banking on the fact, like you said, that that is what the men are engaging with. And we do have to talk about the men of it all because she is one woman, but she wouldn't be able to have this career if there were not people buying into it. And one of the reasons when I said I want to talk about this, Beth, was like I'm actually really hesitant to talk about it because the whole point is for as long as we speak about her, she exists.

But I feel like this is crossing such a big boundary for me that it actually does feel like there need to be some sort of intervention. And yeah, just the fact that there are this many men wanting to engage with it. And I think even the fact that content has gone too far and we've spoken about this so much, but it is definitely the internet brought up our brains that like we need such high levels of extremism, whether that's to get off or just to be entertained. It's like things are just getting more and more extreme. And I kind of hate that I'm living through this era where I am shocked by it, but at the same time I'm kind of watching quite numbly videos of a visibly pregnant woman taking what I perceive to be shots of alcohol whilst talking about how she's going to have

a gang bang, whilst talking about how she wants to auction off the name of her baby, I kind of, it's mad that I'm not throwing my phone on the floor and disgust and sort of like banging my head against a wall. I'm thinking, oh God, what's she doing now? I don't want to be living in a while, but that is something that we just kind of go, oh my God, that's just Bonnie Blue. As people say, like, it's the supply and the demand. She is filling, she is supplying something, which obviously there is mass demand for. And I think it's the most hopeful way to be like, well, let's not focus on her and let's make it so that, you know, men spending the money to view this and especially taking part that there is such a stigma associated with that, that people wouldn't

want to come near this stunt. But I do, I just don't think that's going to work. And actually, yeah, I was retic to talk about this, but I do think this is, to me, this feels like the crescendo and everything, you know, above this point. She's done the barely legal. She has done the fake pregnancy, the real pregnancy, perhaps the fake shots, but still worrying people enough, like I'm sure social services probably have been called in the way that the police are constantly called on Bonnie Blue. I'm starting to suspect. And I think when I was doing my reading for this, I was like it crystallised. I think personally, I would like this to be the last time. I ever speak on her because

like we say, this is the fuel in the engine that keeps her going. May she be kept safe from persecution and harm in her line of work, but there's a child that will be born soon. And I think I feel like I'm participating in the stunt. And I feel like a participant in her marketing at this point. We don't all the time, but I do think personally, and obviously this pod is a democracy, we can definitely cover it, you know, between the two of you, if there is something else. But I think I would like this to be the last words I speak about this person I think has crossed a line now into involving an unborn child in the marketing for sexual stance. And I think that is my limit on platforming and individual,

which I've just kind of realised as we were having this conversation. No, I really get that. I really get that. And I really respect you saying that as well. I don't know. Essentially do agree with everything you said, which is she thrives and lives off infamy. And in part, that is the actual stunts, but it has an afterlife of like a year just from the fact that media organisations, including ourselves, talk about it and dissect her. And she does all of this on purpose. I think she is extremely strategic. That is the reason she is able to continue what should be five seconds of fame into at this point, quite likely five years of fame. And so I do really respect that, to be honest. If you are across online literary circles or book talk, you might

already know about the drama surrounding Hot Girls Read TM. So last week, Ali Metrovich, who is a booktop creator with 60,000 followers and a small business owner announced in a since deleted post that she had officially secured the registration for the phrase, Hot Girls Read, which is quite a common online phrase like Girlmas or Girl Dinner. In the deleted post, she shared that she was preparing to drop merch with the tagline and wrote, three years ago after I started reading more consistently and finally started to love to read, I put HGR on some bookmarks and crews and the rest is freaking history. She went on, in the least corny way possible, that little phrase changed my life and changed

the entire course of my business in a way I never saw coming. I love that because of those three words, a lot of you found me and I love talking about books with you. This trademark is for the freaking girls. So things got a little bit dicey when it looked like she was then telling off other people for using the phrase in a series of deleted posts. Some small business owners saw these as threats. Since then, the creator has issued an apology reel and claimed she's filing paperwork to undo the trademark, but the internet was not happy.

I'm so sorry to every business that I've harmed in doing this, she said in the real. This was more a business strategy than a human being decision, and that was entirely wrong on my end. She went on to assure her audience that profits from all remaining HGR merch will go to literary charities. Emma Eileen in her substack, Emma wrote what, writes, this situation beautifully highlights the greed problem online communities have been facing, stealing intellectual property for profit. Hot Girls' Read isn't a thing people associate with one creator. It's a community phrase. It's a joke, a meme, a slogan that emerge organically from internet reading culture. It belongs to the same category as phrases like book boyfriend, touch her and die, or enemies to lovers. All of these terms, Hot Girls Read included,

were pieces of a collective language built by thousands of readers interacting in the bookish spaces. This isn't the first time a trademark dispute has pissed off for the internet. Back in 2024, Jules LeBron, the content creator behind Very Timur, very mindful, when astronomically viral, gaining nearly 50 million views. Meanwhile, a man named Jefferson Bates filed a trademark application to claim the phrase for advertising and marketing services, stopping her from being able to sell her own merch from the phrase that she had coined. Later that year, Jules shared she'd handled it and appeared to have retained the rights. Oh, this is...

It's messy, but it's also, it's serious. What did you think of this? Did you kind of, were you attuned to this book, talk drama? It was brand new when you guys brought it to me, but I completely agree with Emma Eileen's substack, basically, which is just that we have got to stop trying to monetise everything. Monetising your hobbies, monetising the way that you look, but it's just, it's wild,

but I do kind of feel sorry for your kind of younger Gen Z, which I think is that everyone is being brainwashed into thinking that they have to be an entrepreneur or a business owner. And so like any small idea takes off and immediately people like latch onto it. It is a hot mess. I would hate to find myself at the center of this. But I also think that people have been unfortunately kind of coddled into thinking that if you just have a bright idea, if someone likes something you say, then actually that is it. Just follow your dreams and go and get it. Sorry, my toothbrush keeps sporadically turning on, which is what to have it on the desk. I don't know if you can hear that. Vibrations. Yeah. We don't want to say

anything. Are you sure it's your toothbrush? It's obviously honest. It's just, I don't know what's happened. It just goes off. I had to have it next to my bed last night because if I put it somewhere, I could still hear it. Oh yeah, you had to keep it by your bed. Of course you did. It's my surrey, it's my surrey cheesebats. I've looked at it and apparently it is, it's a real thing. Apparently I can, they'll send me a replacement.

You'll have to you. Brilliant. It is. I'm holding it up, guys. I promise it is a toothbrush. I'm an adult. I don't have to use a toothbrush. That was sort of thing. Oh, God. I'm so childish. Oh, Brian. Okay. Anyway, yeah, basically, I just think, I think it's a mess. I think it's a drama. I think that it's, I guess, like kind of a lack of education, but it is hilarious to think that you could trademark something like that, because just how did you not know? I mean, I am enjoying the fallout of it. What about you, Richard? Yeah, I, so a friend brought this to me, I think, last week and we were just talking about how wild it is that you would, I guess, have the lack of hubris to think that it's okay to do something like this. And also, So the stakes do feel quite low, so I do feel like it's one of those things where it's kind of fun to wade into because I don't think there's any like huge victims in this.

It is just kind of a modern parable of everyone wants a slice of business or virality. So they just go for it. And it's almost like the first person there is the person who is the winner overall. But I think the problem is she realized you can't also be liked while behaving like this. Oh, it gives me shivers because I imagine seeing all the backlash. And if she really didn't realize the response she'd get from this, you would just feel sick, absolutely sick to your stomach. Yeah, it feels like she just took some very bad advice. I think it's so interesting.

I mean, Emma Eileen's piece, I've not read in its entirety, but I will. Because I do think everything is content, but everything is also, like, product. It does, the cycle between, like, funny phrase becomes merch, becomes, and then, like, in a few weeks, it's, like, out of vogue. It's this tiring thing, and it feels like nothing just exists on the internet anymore. everything has to then become monetised paywalled fee to read consume have access to and it's boring and it's greedy and it's it's very 2026 but it also does feel like natural consequence of creating this gay economy this economic uncertainty where people cannot go to work and have full-time

job and you know really make ends meet anymore and everyone's thinking well I must be the shea must be the mogul and it does I mean she's 26 years old I think this creator she it's a tough lesson bit of a rogue move but hopefully a lesson because people were digging up this phrase from 2009 on Twitter. I think it even would be akin to the three of us. Like everything is content is not a phrase that just exists for us. People use it in different contexts all the time. It would be like us saying, but it's our podcast name,

you cannot say these words without, you know, giving us five pounds. I'd love for that to be the economic case. But it's just, it's not feasible. And something that Hot Girls read, if you know you haven't come up with it, if you know you also started reading an earnest three years ago, which is nothing to be sniffed at, but let's be, you know, be realistic. Book Talk is quite serious. about these kinds of things.

I just can't imagine the goal to go, you know, I made that up. People are calling her Christina Columbus for being like, you know, Christopher Columbus landed in a country that had been discovered and went, yeah, I've discovered this. And so, yeah. I can see Ritra laughing. And I think it's because she's like, I want to trademark everything in this content. Is that why you're laughing?

No, no, I would never. I would never. She's already done it. Quietly filled out the forms. I know. So this is so interesting because there's so much in this. But this week, Matilda Jurf, who I can't remember, we covered her cancellation, but she kind of dropped off for me because I did start, like, dislike her because of all of the kind of bullying allegations. But recently she's been coming up on my feed again, not actually dislike her, but I was like a super fan of hers and then I kind of disengaged. But she was on a podcast called Sammy Cohen talks. And she was talking about how her IP or original designs on her, or original designs on her dress, all of her clothes that at hand painted, but then like Amazon or Timu will just make the exact copy. And you can't really do anything about it because it's really expensive.

But at the same time, like a lot of her vibe for her outfits are also, they're not like totally original when she came up with Jeff, haven't you? Like those designs already existed. And so much of the internet is just everyone copying each other, whether it's how we speak or it's how we dress or the designs that we have. But everyone also gets very protective about it as well because I think we all want to have some sense of individuality. And you can really believe in your mind that you came up with something. But actually, you're just existing in the same era and cultural zeitguise as everyone else. It's a bit like, I can't remember I said this before, but I was talking about this with a friend the other day about, you know, you have baby names when you're really little, and then

you get to the age where everyone starts having babies, they've all got your baby names. You're like, what the hell? I didn't tell anyone. And it's just because we all grew up with the same information absorbing the same things, and we all kind of collectively do have the same ideas. And I think it is genuinely impossible now, quite hard to have an original thought, because we are exposed to so many people but I do find it funny because I do think there are instances where like even reels you know people copy each other's reels and people comment like you haven't given me credit and someone's like I genuinely haven't seen your reel I just thought the same thing I think it is the internet makes it very very difficult to have something that is truly yours but because we're told to monetise everything

people want to do it and you're right about her thinking if she didn't care if she was like a go-getter I saw really funny reel from someone saying like the reason we're poor is because we're not doing what jay shetty's doing like jay shetty's just got a five million pound deal and everyone knows that he's not really a monk and everyone knows that he's a grifter. But he just doesn't give a shit. And it was about how like now in this age of the internet, if you really want to be successful and you really want to make money, you actually have to just not care her.

And so there's a world in which she did that and did make a shit ton of money. And actually probably would have got really successful of it. But it's not a great environment to be living in. That's so funny about Jay Shetty. It's so true. And I was listening to Celebrity Memoir Book Club. And they were talking about the ongoing case with the drag queen, Patagonia versus Patagonia and Patagonia are basically, they have a very strong trademark against

Patagonia and it seems like a very cruel case of punching down. But listening to that podcast, they were talking about the fact that if you don't protect your name when you have a trademark set against it, it makes you look weaker in the future when you then go after a bigger case. You have to basically be consistent in protecting that name as you go. So it's a really horrible, more complicated issue than I realized it was because on the face of it, it looked like a David and Goliath fight where Patti Goni of the Drag Queen feels like, what harm are they doing, you know, and having that name? But it seems like a very complex world. Anyway, when they started their podcasts, there were a few other podcasts with similarish names, slightly different wording. And they got a business manager in,

and the business manager advised them to trademark their name so that they could cut off the other podcast from existing or force them into changing their names. And they both said, no, that seems really sharky and that seems really fucking stupid, especially if we want to be a podcast that has a fan base who respects us and feels, you know, like they like us as people. But I think that is the world that people operate in where it's like, it's okay for us to not trademark our name because it doesn't really fit in with our beliefs and our ideas for the fact that we can't own the phrase that we use as our name. But I think there are people who behave that way, who are really sharchy, who then force other people's hand or force them out of the pool of creativity. And what do you do when

the world isn't equal in how everyone behaves. There are people who really use trademarks to their benefit to cut other people's creativity off. Yeah, I can decide to be a good person, but I can't force the person over the road to be a good person in return. Late stage capitalism does, has rewarded historically people that do not give a shit that are sharchy that do use existing investments to make more money and to strong arm using legalese, the little guy. I mean, it's it's just so, it's David and Goliath, but also guess what, Goliath, the winner. And it's so that's the cynical take on this is that people are saying that she has only done this one for the backlash and would have quietly wanted to get away with it, but also that trademark law means that she would have to

defend her usage of it and actually she doesn't have a strong case. And so she surrendered this trademark, really because it would have cost her money to defend it. I don't know if that's true or not. I think I watched her apology video. It seemed very sincere. 26-year-old girl, like I say, I think that she had just taken bad advice and is now very sorry for it. But people are really not willing to accept. her apology, it seems. I don't know if you looked at the comments. People are just like going for her tone, her face that she says at one point my trademark. And people like, telling you said my trademark, even though, well, it is her trademark because she had filed it. That's just semantics. But the unwillingness to soften and be like, what the internet

always says is to take accountability and make up for it. She's donating all the profits to these two charities. She is saying sorry. She doesn't, she is completely like, I harmed people. I did something wrong. It's kind of a textbook, perfect apology. But people are like, no. And it's so funny. I think the internet now, we're so tired of these apology videos that we have collectively just decided not to accept them anymore. Like, things that we would forgive in ourselves and loved ones and even like people we'd sort of know in real life, we'd go, they're only human that made a mistake. On the internet, we're like, unfortunately, we will have to put you on the stake and burn you. I genuinely think you get away with stuff more online if you actually

just don't engage. Agreed. There have been things that have happened with people online and I've thought, when are they going to, what's going to happen? And then I kind of checked back in and I'm like, Oh, they just never don't watch that. What's the Royal Family thing? Never explain. Never explain. No, never complain. Never complain.

And I think people that do that are genuinely so successful. The minute you take any accountability, you actually lose footing because people just don't, what people are looking for. I wrote this in a subsection of the day are gods. That's what people want people that they follow. They look up to. You have to be like impervious to anyone else. You have to be so above everyone and so above your station that people genuinely think that you like,

no more. I don't know. It's so fascinating to me. But I remember. on trademarks years ago. I was going to come up with like a recycled jewelry brand. It was just like six years ago. And I went through the process. I was about to like start doing it. And I was trying to come up with the name and I wanted to call it loop because it was going to be a bangle, a pinky ring and a pair of hoops. And it was made from a cycle gold and everything was a circle.

Anyway, loop was trademarks. Every single word you could possibly imagine is trademark. That's why every single name of every brand is something that's just like two things smushed together like made up words. Basically, if you want to have a brand now, there isn't one that every single word in the dictionary has been trademarked. Everything has to be made up. It does seem like she got bad advice, was trying to be like a young entrepreneurial woman, probably thought she was doing quite a clever thing and just wasn't sure of the ramifications. I'm sure that at 26, I could have easily done that. You've just got to learn. I do think there are so many examples of this.

If she was on the internet as much as we were, she would have never made this mistake. So earlier this week, UK Prime Minister Kirstama announced that tech companies must introduce inbuilt software that stops underage users from taking or sharing nudes. Apple and Google have been given until September to install. install software that blocks explicit images on children's mobile phones or face legislation to force them to do so. If they don't comply within three months, legislation will be brought forward requiring the protection to be added to all phones and tablets sold in the UK. Tech firms that fail to do so could face fines and their senior managers could be made criminally liable. Last month,

Jess Phillips quit her post as safeguarding minister, claiming that Stama had failed to introduce changes to halt the ability of children in the UK to take naked images of themselves. But surveillance think tanks are extremely concerned about the impact of the legislation. Silky Carlo, the director of Big Brother Watch, said that the plans could invoke the death of anonymity and internet privacy. She said this will only result in population-wide ID checks for all of us to use our phones, tablets and laptops. These plans would replace efforts for meaningful tech and parental responsibility with performative authoritarian government control that children can easily circumvent by accessing adult registered devices.

She goes on, plan restrictions on messaging, streaming and browsing, raise the potential of spyware in our pockets that will be exploited for other purposes before long. The government mandating that all phones in Britain require ID and surveillance software is a crossing of the Rubicon that would make the UK one of the most authoritarian internet regimes in the world. This extreme technological censorship requires rigorous public and parliamentary scrutiny that is currently totally missing. On the opposite side, Rani Gavender from the NSPCC said, quote, safety features that stop children from taking, sharing or viewing nude images play a vital role in protecting them from the most serious forms of online harm, including grooming, sexual extortion and their proliferation of child sexual abuse material.

It is time for TEPWASS to do everything in their power to keep young people safe online and introduce already existing technology on children's phones to block nude images. The move is one of a handful from the government that introduces age verification checks. Last year, it introduced age limitations on adult websites such as Pornhub, with off-com threatening major fines to websites that do not comply. I mean, I feel like this is sort of, every time we talk about like grok, AI, nudifying, whatever else we say, like, it's on the government to force big tech to fall in line and to be kind of firm-handed with it.

And I know he's not being that firm-handed, he's saying, pretty poise, you better do it by September. You know, Jess Phillips has criticised him for not being firmer. But this is sort of on paper what a lot of campaigners have been begging for to keep kids safe. But what do you both think, kind of like baby bathwater, horses bolted, I just cannot get a really fine read on this.

Yeah, I feel really confused. I think because of the verification checks on Porn Hub, and porn sites from last year and reading journalists that I trust a lot saying that that has made the UK one of the most authoritarian governments when it comes to internet freedoms in the world. I think I take that really seriously and I take their views quite seriously. It's also really hard to get a gauge on this because a lot of the critics, apart from Big Brother Watch and a lot of the think tanks are the platforms themselves. So places like signal, telegram, VPN companies have all come out and criticise the move.

So it's really hard because it's like, well, I don't want to be on your side. but a lot of what you're saying does make sense. I do think the lack of anonymity and the lack of privacy that we are normalising in the UK is really scary. And I do think I brought this to the podcast, I think last year after the porn hub verification checks, a girl, well, she said she was a woman on Reddit posted this post in like a lawyer chat and she was really worried.

She basically said that she'd worked up the courage to put the post there. And she was getting scammed out of money because she'd done the age verification checks. And I think in the process maybe had gone on a. different site, not the official Pornhub site and had like engaged in a scam and they were now blackmailing her. And I just think I read that and I was like by pushing people to the shadows and the fringes, that's also not a good thing. And it's not really dealing with these issues in a nuanced, critical way. And I don't think it's putting the onus on tech companies as much as it's

putting the onus on individual tablets and devices. I keep thinking about the amount of moderators who've been laid off from these companies. X. Famacy got rid of a bunch of them when Elon Musk took over. I'm not smart enough to know what the answer is, but I feel like I really am also listening to Big Brother Watch when they say that this is a really worrying overstep. I really worry about children's safety. I just don't know what the right answer is, but I feel concerned about the amount of surveillance that is now becoming quite normalized in modern day life in the UK. I think we spoke about this when we're talking about the under 16 social media ban, which Kirsteim obviously spoke about, and they've done in Australia and various other countries.

The problem is it's children in adult spaces, the internet being an adult space that I don't think children should have access to in the same way. But what this is doing because it's going to then infringe on other communities, other people that maybe need anonymity, people that don't have ID within the UK who still need to have safety and access to the internet. I think that's where it's worrying. And I think I said this before, but is there not a world in which simply under the age of 16, you can't have a normal smartphone? So it doesn't impact all technology. It's just like you couldn't have an iPhone. There are phones that you can get as a child. and there are phones that you have as an adult.

And those phones simply do not give you, like there's no way around it. Because the thing with the social media ban, what a lot of the people worrying about it was saying is, children are really savvy. They're much more digitally native than we are. When I think about my nieces, their ability to go around a phone and they're like toddlers.

When you're brought up with tech, they understand it so intuitively. They'll use other sites like roadblocks or they'll work out how to get onto the dark web. I mean, maybe they won't. I have no idea how that is. But they will find ways around this that mean that they can use sites that they shouldn't be on

because that's just what teenagers do, like they find a way around it. So I think it feels like what we've been asking for, like you've said, Beth, but then I also do think it does really worry me. It does worry me the surveillance thing. On the flip side, just anecdotally, weirdly, I was at Friends Bath in. We were asking everyone. And basically everyone was like, I just don't even bother watching porn anymore because I'm not logging in. And every guy there was like, I literally just haven't even, I just don't want to put my details on.

So it obviously does work in some ways. And I do think that is a really good thing, not to porn shame. But I do think that we've spoken about porn brain so many times. I do think there's way too much porn on the internet and people are watching way too much of it. So it's interesting how much just like a very small deterrent does deter people. But I think it deters adults more than it does children because I think adults we think, well, I don't want to know. And also we're more risk of us like the idea of putting your sort of like credit card details on

and like your email into a porn site. Everyone's like I don't want that on there. What if it like tracks me or something? I do think it needs to be maybe more of like a 360 approach, aka much better education in school. Like you said, much more human moderation on these sites. It's not just kind of like AI intervention. There needs to be basically people around these children, helping them, teaching them to not just prevent them from being able to do the thing, but actually teaching them dangers of why they shouldn't be doing it in a way that's going to kind of get through. I think it's so tempting in this case because this is such a serious problem

and I wasn't completely versed in it. I mean, I was reading The Guardian. Online grooming cases have risen to 7,000 a year in the UK with organised criminal gangs and social media sites profiting from the sale and exchange of images and footage of abuse. The UK's National Crime Agency receives 1,700 referrals every week and 9 in 10 child abuse images were generated by children last year, many of whom had been tricked or blackmailed by abusers who they'd met on the internet.

Gov UK said 91% of online child sexual abuse reports recorded in 2024 contains self-generated content from children themselves and the average child-na abuse pornography by age 13 and final stat. 52% of all child sexual abuse and exploitation cases involve children age 10 to 17 offending against other children. And when you hear those statistics, it's so hard not to go, well, we have to throw everything at it. We had Alex Light on a few weeks ago and she was talking about she wants the UK to follow Australia and banning social media for under 16s for having these, which does involve. having these verification checks. But I do think from Kier-Starmer, he's so keen on digital ID. And he only, you know, mandatory digital ID, he only you turned on that because of the backlash. This to me feels like a Trojan horse is trying to slip this in under the guise of something

that is a really pressing concern. And like the government saying, adults will still be able to, you know, take nudy photos or just have to go through an age verification process, which is, I believe, a violation of every sensible privacy law. And it does mean, you know, a lot of people who are against mandatory ID would then have to kind of like take up against privacy laws for safety laws for children. I think it's really authoritarian in agenda. And I do, we can post that it's very long the signal statement, which is in which is titled surveillance is not safety. And basically they are saying that children deserve to be safe, protected, nurtured.

They do not deserve surveillance, funding cuts and cover ups. Children also deserve their human right to privacy as to everyone else. and Bacy says it just endangers us all. It gives these sites, market dominance, it sells our data. It is, we cross the Rubicon, we cannot then cross back. It will make this country just, as you say, Richard, are leading in authoritarian control, internet restrictions. And what they say, what signals say is what we need is robust social services, well-funded educational, meaningful guardrails on the very AI technologies and platforms, the current government eagerly courting, lest we not forget all the headlines about data centres.

I think Kirstehmah does not know his ass from his elbow in terms of technology and he just really wants Manchester Digital ID. I do not trust him. With the pickup for AI, it boils my blood because using AI to then implement this inbuilt software, the same technology that people are using to generate illegal, non-consensual images, both of adults and children. Just somebody explain it to me. Somebody helped me get my head around it. How can it both be a tool for abuse and a tool for education and a tool. tool to be picked up and used. That's why I can't feel that any of this is genuine or effective, because I feel like there's so many giant gaping holes in this argument. I think if it felt like

there was a very strategic approach to this issue that addressed so many different aspects to it, then I could kind of understand the logic behind it. We know that AI generated images are such a massive problem. Ladd Bible on their piece on this new legislation coming in said a sexual offences lawyer warned them about the quote, explosion of a legal. images that are likely to surface thanks to AI. And it was always likely that the UK government was going to try and step in to protect under 16s on the internet because of it. Is this really the way to effectively stop a huge instigator of this problem by not really curbing AI in any way, just utilising it for another form of surveillance on phones? I don't know. Yeah, exactly. Like the cure can't

be the poison. Like the internet tech and AI can't raise our children. The real issue is that we don't have enough funding around children, whether that's like in healthcare, social care services. there's spaces for children, education. Like, that's where I want them to put their money. It's like when you read out those stats, it is so scary, but it's all happening online. That's the real crux of the issue. And I think if there was a way to have children be more offline, feel like they were in safer spaces, feel like they were more educated. Obviously, kids will be kids and try and get around that and not necessarily understand.

But it does feel like this is a plaster that sounds good in a way. And if it was the only way to protect children, then whatever, I don't mind being more surveilled, if that's the only end outcome. but it feels like it's a kind of shortcut. Cutting corners feels cheaper because it's using tech and AI, which are technically fundamentally cheaper than humans, although absolutely extortionate when it comes to, you know, how long have we got on this planet? But yeah, I just think it is kind of above our pay grades, I guess, in a way, but at the same time, it feels like something which could make a really splashy headline that makes people feel like there's a resolution to this issue when I feel like it's just a plaster. I also do think, and it's taken me a while to kind of wrap my head around this, but I do think it's just a contradiction in terms increased surveillance to protect children. Increased surveillance does put children at risk as much as adults. It also infringes on just a fundamental right that we all have. You can't unring that bell. I do think the more I read about it, it's really difficult because like we say, it's above our pay grade. We three cannot be a think tank that solves this problem. But more surveillance cannot equal greater safety. for children or anyone and that's just a really difficult pill to swallow personally I think.

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