Pathways is a free, youth focused online learning package created by Shout Out UK with Home Office backing, aimed at helping 13–18 year olds recognise extremism, radicalisation and the logic behind the Prevent programme. It uses simple branching scenarios where students tap through stories about classmates, social media content and protests, seeing how different choices can lead either to support and de‑escalation or to online hate and even a Prevent referral. Officially, the goal is to build critical thinking, media literacy and awareness of help services rather than to endorse a particular party line.
The controversy exploded around “Amelia”, an AI generated goth schoolgirl originally designed as one character in this classroom game, who appears in a storyline about a small political group protesting social change and “erosion of British values”. Commentators and parents have argued that some prompts effectively treat normal scepticism about migration or government policy as a risk marker, especially when the game warns that certain answers could lead to anti‑terror referrals. Critics say this blurs the line between safeguarding and political steering at a time when wider UK policy already pushes platforms to pre‑emptively filter “harmful” content.
At the same time, an anonymous X account heavily reworked Amelia into a meme: she now walks through stylised London scenes declaring love for England, railing against “militant Muslims” and “third‑world migrants”, and starring in thousands of user generated clips. The character has been sexualised, remixed into anime or claymation styles, and even used to promote a meme‑coin, turning her into a kind of folk mascot for online culture warriors and opportunists cashing in on outrage. Shout Out UK’s founder says the project was meant to sit inside a wider, teacher led curriculum and insists it does not label questioning mass migration as inherently wrong, but he also admits the scale and speed of the meme’s hijacking show how easily well intentioned digital projects can be weaponised. The case has become a touchpoint in the UK’s long running Prevent debate: whether state backed “prevention” tools actually build resilience, or whether they risk teaching teenagers that there is only one safe way to talk about sensitive political issues.
