Manosphere: More Than 60 Labour MPs Tell Ofcom to Protect Men and Boys — A Regulatory Wake-Up Call
The letter to Ofcom highlights how the manosphere is being flagged by more than 60 Labour MPs as a concentrated source of online harms that often target boys and men in distinct ways. MPs argue that tech platforms need specific guidance to tackle content that leads to gambling exposure, sextortion and violent pornography, and that existing regulatory framing focused on harms to women and girls leaves a gap for gendered risks aimed at males.
Why this matters now
More than 60 Labour MPs have written to Melanie Dawes, the chief executive of Ofcom, urging stronger protection for men and boys from the online communities and influencers clustered in the manosphere. The intervention comes as the Online Safety Act requires Ofcom to guide platforms on content that disproportionately affects women and girls, but MPs warn that the content targeted at a male audience is “likely to be different, and platforms might need to take different steps to understand and tackle the problem. ” The point is illustrated with two stark data points: the Gambling Commission finds 53% of 11- to 17-year-old boys see gambling adverts online weekly compared with 31% of their female peers, and the Internet Watch Foundation reports 91% of sextortion victims are male. That combination, MPs say, creates an urgent policy puzzle for the regulator.
Manosphere and targeted harms
MPs set out a list of specific harms they believe are disproportionately directed at males: far-right political radicalisation, crypto scams and violent pornography through content by popular creators. Alistair Strathern, MP for Hitchin and co-chair of the Labour group for men and boys, framed the issue with reference to a recent documentary, saying it was “another reminder of a particular way some of the worst of the internet can prey on young men and boys. ” Strathern warned that failing to address gendered aspects of online risk undermines efforts to tackle violence against women and girls because the harms experienced by men and boys can ripple out to the people in their lives.
What MPs want and the regulatory gap
The MPs’ letter asks Ofcom to give specific guidance to tech platforms so they can recognise and mitigate content aimed at male audiences. Nick Isles, director of the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys, described the influencers at the centre of concern: “These [influencers] may be lost souls but the people they affect are not, ” and he urged more protection for young boys and men “by using our existing laws to prosecute hate speech, by creating new legislation where needed and through the tax system to confiscate moneys earned through activity which harms. ” Strathern was careful to say MPs were not seeking “equity for the sake of it, ” but pressed that when there is “clear evidence around the gendered aspects of harms affecting boys and men, as well as women and girls, ” Ofcom must “step up” and act.
The letter explicitly notes that while exposure to misinformation, pornography and misogynist content occurs at similar rates across genders, the nature of content targeted at male audiences differs and “platforms might need to take different steps to understand and tackle the problem. ” That framing reframes the regulatory task: it is not only the volume of harmful content that matters but its composition and the particular vulnerabilities of the audience.
Expert perspectives and enforcement levers
Experts and MPs who contributed to the letter urged a mix of tools: enforcement of existing laws on hate speech, new legislation where enforcement is inadequate, and financial leverage to remove profit incentives for harmful activity. Strathern pressed Ofcom directly: “I think that the challenge to them is to show they’re taking this seriously, ” and added that evidence of gendered harms points to a gap the regulator must fill. The argument positions Ofcom’s guidance as central to whether platforms will adapt content moderation and risk-assessment practices to the gendered profile of harms highlighted by MPs.
An Ofcom spokesperson has previously noted that protections under the Online Safety Act were designed to benefit users, but the correspondence from MPs frames a specific expectation: guidance should explicitly address risks that manifest differently for men and boys as well as for women and girls.
The letter’s intervention seeks to move the debate beyond binary framing of online harms and toward a regulatory approach that distinguishes between audience-specific content flows. If tech companies accept that the manosphere channels distinct harms into young male demographics, their moderation, advertising and safety engineering choices may need to change.
Will Ofcom revise its guidance to reflect the gendered picture MPs have described and, in doing so, compel platforms to adopt measures tailored to the manosphere’s specific risks?
