Net nannying, part 2
29/04/2008
What controls, if any, should be put in place to protect children more online?
Rights activist
Suw Charman
Open Rights Group
Before we talk about controls to protect children online, we need to more fully understand how children are behaving online and why. So many calls for control are no more than knee-jerk reactions to isolated cases, and are often based on incorrect assumptions about how the internet works. Those who have studied or worked with children and teens online, such as danah boyd or Stephanie Booth, are routinely ignored or dismissed in favour of sensationalist, but underinformed, campaigners and politicians. If policymakers are not prepared to listen to the results of objective study and experience, then the policies they draft will be ineffective. The problems children face online are not technological ones, but social ones, and they should be treated accordingly. Parents must be encouraged to become more engaged in the activities of their children online. That doesn’t need regulation, but it does need education and support.
Suw is executive director of the Open Rights Group, which raises awareness of digital rights issues
Content specialist
Siim Vips
Modera
A range of different groups need to work together to protect our children online. Responsibility for securing safety doesn’t fall to any one quarter. Education is key, so we need to see above, below and through-the-line advertising and marketing to educate children about the dangers of talking to strangers online, and also that they need to be a certain age to register and use social networks and similar environments.
Deterrents need to be more visible, with more hard hitting warnings advising underage users that signing up to some services is illegal and that they could be prosecuted for doing so. Public announcements (although expensive) on above-the-line channels will most likely grab the most interest, especially if used on and within the sites themselves. With the revenues that are created from such initiatives, surely these budgets can be invested into the audiences that ultimately support them and make them what they are. Groups could work together to reach the various audiences to communicate what is happening in the digital space and the great and bad that’s transpiring out there. By arming those in positions of responsibility, perhaps they can make more informed decisions on how their children, or children in their care, use online environments.
Social networks could communicate more about what their services are, what they do and how they do it, and produce guides to safety, ensuring more visible checks are put into place, not only on sign-up. More regular sweeps to locate underage users should be carried out and although extreme, and possibly unpopular with the networks, ID checks (passport, credit cards or similar) could be used to guarantee that users are who they claim to be. We need to address a balance here, because although there are unsavoury elements to social networks and similar, there are some great positives to be taken from them and the roles that they now play. We need to be clear in pointing out the dangers and safety issues, but temper this with factual information that doesn’t send our youth and non-savvy guardians into more frenzies, where they misunderstand what the emerging online social environments are about.
Siim is a content management specialist at Modera
Media & PR expert
Tim Gibbon
Elemental Communications
Haven’t we been here before, just before MSN and Yahoo shut down their online communities a few years back, pointing to similar concerns? Are online communities such as social networks really that different? There have been several catalysts that have accelerated the number of people communicating in digital hubs online and the development of online communities. The underlying issues from a few years back are still with us, but have grown tenfold, and then some. The size of the audience online is greater and the environment so much more vast, which means that we all need to be vigilant and put checks in place, be it as a parent, educator, government or publisher through to the legal enforcers. We all need to collaborate more to formalise ways to enlighten young people to how they can ‘really’ be safe online. More media coverage and campaigns need to be visible to build and sustain awareness.
Inherently, young people are potentially more attracted to activity and areas that they perhaps shouldn’t be, and with a lot of parents and guardians out of touch, they are more vulnerable. Controlling their access is a near-impossible feat given the ease they can sign up to sites that only rely upon their honesty. The interest in such sites is too great (also created by the media) and it’s easy to see why they appeal to those underage. Sites and organisations such as Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) (www.ceop.gov.uk) and the internet Watch Foundation (IWF) (www.iwf.org.uk) are resources we can all learn from, but it appears they’re not hitting the headlines, and it seems there’s only ‘noise’ when a report or research is released. We need more investment in creating campaigns (off and online) that sustain interest and consistently communicate more about the medium, and in online environments just as well if not ‘better’ than the online communities themselves.
A two-pronged approach needs to be adopted where children are educated to how to conduct themselves online and advising them that signing up to communities if underage could lead to prosecution, backed with robust deterrents and information from online communities. One possible solution could be to exclude underage users by having security checks, by credit card, national insurance number or similar, but imagine how problematic that would be, especially when consumer confidence with the web is already pushed to the limit (such as BT’s advertising trial with Phorn).
Tim is the founder and director of Elemental Communications, a media comms consultancy
Social media and comms expert
Rachel Hawkes
Elemental Communications
A few months ago, I was helping my nine-year-old niece sign up to Disney’s Fairy World and after she spent 30 minutes coming up with the ‘perfect username’ she told me that I would need to sign up too as her guardian. As part of this registration process, she had to give Disney her guardian’s email address. They then emailed me. I had to follow a link, enter my own details (including date of birth) and then enter my credit card number to verify my age. Although it was a bit of a ‘faff’, I was incredibly pleased that at last people were ‘starting to get it’.
At my niece’s school (in Australia) they start to incorporate lessons on the internet from grade one. These are monitored periods, with a very strict net nanny in place, but they’re incredibly valuable in that they start to build a foundation for responsible internet behaviour. They talk about stranger danger, not just from people in cars offering lollies, but from people that you may not know who may strike up a conversation when you’re playing a game on Gaia (or similar).
Education is paramount, and education should start and finish at home and be reinforced at ‘every touch point’ (peers, school, idols). Individual groups and/or collaborations are doing this on a smaller scale to tackle the problem, but so long as it remains a hit-and-miss approach, it will be seen as an issue that’s not being taken as seriously as it should be.
In January 2008, MySpace launched an initiative with the US attorney general to create an ‘online safety taskforce’, which MySpace hoped would be recognised as a challenge to other community providers from which constructive conversation and joint steps to improve online safety would follow throughout the industry. At the time, this got quite a lot of media attention and I thought it might stay on the agenda for at least some weeks to follow. But alas, people moved on quickly to the next hot topic, as tends to happen.
It’s not just about stranger danger, though. We also need to be teaching our children about cyber-bullying: that it’s not acceptable and should not be tolerated. In my opinion, cyber-bullying is even more of a threat to the safety (both mental and physical) of young and impressionable young people as it’s more prevalent and it has immediate and wide-reaching real-life impact on these individuals’ lives. Just look at the case of Megan Meier in the US. She had a falling out with a friend from school. The mother of the other girl then logged on to MySpace, created an identity of a young man and then became ‘friends’ with Megan. They exchanged emails and Megan became fond of this ‘boy’ who after a time started taunting her and telling her that she wasn’t nice to her friends and the world would be better without her. Megan hung herself.
Rachel Hawkes is an account director at media comms consultancy Elemental Communications
Web video guru
Irfon Watkins
Coull
Ofcom is saying that 40 per cent of children are still leaving their profiles as open despite warnings about online stranger danger but let’s look at it from another angle. That’s 60 per cent, more than one in every two children, who are aware of the risks and are taking precautions. I’d like to know what that figure was this time last year, and again the year before – my guess would be that it was more like these figures were in reverse (as in only 40 per cent of kids were protecting their profiles). So, the message is getting through. Without question, there absolutely needs to be tighter controls in place to protect our young people – and not just by hiding their profiles on social networking sites. What about introducing stricter measures to control what videos they watch on sites like YouTube and MetaCafe? Yes, some videos are marked as adults only and have sign-in required viewing, but there are a LOT of videos out there that are inappropriate for young viewers that slip through the cracks. It all comes down to a four-pronged approach in my opinion: 1. Relevant government, educational and organisational bodies need to band together and work with only one objective in mind – protecting our young people. 2. Social networking sites, online communities and user generated content sites need to implement tighter moderation when it comes to content and registrations. 3. Parents need to enforce the message of online stranger danger and become savvy internet users themselves so they can better monitor their children’s online activities. 4. Children need to understand that all of the above is ultimately for their own benefit and safety and work with the above parties to educate one another on the potential dangers and risks of being online.
Ifron Watkins is CEO of interactive video company Coull
Project manager
Ané-Mari Peter
on-IDLE
The recent call for all sex offenders to submit personal email addresses to limit grooming is quite ludicrous. It takes seconds to set up an anonymous email address and monitoring such activity is impractical and untenable technically and resource-wise. Not even China can watch everyone all the time both online and physically – in the UK we cannot even keep track of early release prisoners... The primary responsibility of a child must remain with its primary carer(s) – a parent or guardian, rather than the government. Legislation already provides ample protection of information and minors. A child should also be instilled with a sense of personal responsibility. Children learn not to open the door to or accept sweets from strangers: safe online usage should be taught too. Parents/guardians must become actively aware of the different methods with which children communicate interactively and what each method entails. Interactive communication is not only through social networking sites, but also through blogs, personal websites, instant messaging, chat, mobiles, gaming, email, P2P TV and file sharing – each with its own benefits and associated privacy risks. Common sense, the available resources and support groups and the following tips are a good guide:
• Install internet filters and monitoring software on all computers to which children have access – and if possible, the computer should be in an open location at home, rather than behind a closed door.
• Children under 13 should never give out personal information (name, email, home address, birth date, contact numbers) about themselves online, especially in chat rooms, without the express consent of a parent/guardian.
• Children over 13 (teenagers) should be taught how to conduct themselves online safely. If they are publishing material (websites, blog) the parent should visit and review the content, they should not be allowed to use unmediated chat rooms, they should only be opening and corresponding by email with people they know, instant messaging should only be with people they have met in real life.
• Children should be encouraged to show and talk to their parents about material found online or experiences they’ve had which made them feel uncomfortable so that they can identify the depth of the problem, report abuse and involve law enforcement if necessary. Relevant links for concerned adults and children about protecting your privacy online – how to report abuse, and where to get help – include:
Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) pages for young people
Information for young people from the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre
Ané-Mari is the co-founder of on-IDLE and has a background in business management and technology
