This report by The University of Essex Human Rights Centre clinic argues that while UK and EU laws regulate illegal content and formal advertising, they fail to adequately address how influencers, online subcultures, and platform algorithms normalise gun-related and violence-adjacent behaviours, particularly among vulnerable audiences, and recommends a broader public health and regulatory approach to accountability.

Pope Leo’s first encyclical warns that without stronger regulation and ethical oversight, artificial intelligence risks undermining democracy, human dignity and social cohesion by concentrating power in the hands of governments and technology companies.