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WE’RE SO USED to seeing all sorts of celebrities churning out Instagram posts and tweets, that it can often come as a surprise to when we Google a celeb’s Instagram or Twitter and find that they don’t actually have any online presence. 

Look at Saoirse Ronan, Kristen Stewart, or even Angelina Jolie. We shouldn’t really be surprised, considering that these women are all have very successful acting careers and they don’t really need the extra income that social media provides. 

While speaking to BBC Radio 4′s Today programme, Angelina Jolie revealed that she doesn’t even have a personal Facebook page for keeping in touch with her A-list pals, and on top of that, her kids aren’t on social media either. Even for the average parent, there are plenty of reasons why you’d feel apprehensive about letting a kid use Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

For a celebrity parent, there are a whole host of other problems – like avoiding PR disasters, privacy concerns, etc. There’s also the fact that mega rich people don’t tend to get as bored as the rest of us. Yet, these aren’t the concerns at the forefront of Angelina Jolie’s mind. Instead, she’s worried about her children potentially being exposed to fake news. 

I’m not on Facebook and none of my children are on Facebook. Nobody’s even asked to be. We’re the last family that hasn’t gone on Facebook. 

The kids seem to have learned from past experiences encountering false news stories about themselves and their parents. 

We talk about social media, and here’s the truth. My children have seen things about themselves even from what’s considered serious news people that are inaccurate. So my children have a very odd sense of who’s telling the truth and what is the truth and what they actually believe or trust. 

There has never been a time when it was more important to introduce the next generation to objective, impartial news and factual explanation of the events and issues shaping our world. Children today are exposed to a lot of opinion, but not necessarily to information that is fact-based and reliable.

That said, she’s not checking their search history or blocking websites from the family computer. Jolie added that she’s well aware that she can’t “control everything that they’re exposed to”, but she “tries her best to insert good stuff.” 

You try, but there are certain realities to teenagers. Also, you know our generation doesn’t understand half of what they’re doing with their tech, so they can get around us pretty easily. 

At another stage during her BBC interview, Jolie also said that the likelihood of her pursuing a career in politics is growing. “If you asked me 20 years ago, I would’ve laughed. I don’t know if I’m fit for politics, but then I’ve also joked that I don’t know if I have a skeleton left in my closet.” 

I honestly will do whatever I think can really make a change and right now, I am able to work with a UN agency, to do a lot of work directly with the people in need. I’m also able to work with governments and I’m also able to work with militaries. And so I sit in a very interesting place of being able to get a lot done without a title and without it being about myself or my policies. So for now, I’ll sit quiet. 

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