Today is Safer Internet Day. The internet is an amazing tool, an amazing gift even. We enjoy it. It offers opportunity for innovation. It puts tools and excitement at our children’s fingertips, with the potential for digital creativity that those of us who are adults could not have dreamt of when we were younger. But as with all tools and most gifts, it can also be a source of harm. So today all over the UK there are initiatives educating children and their parents about how to keep safe online.
Whether it is pornography, identity theft or bank fraud, bullying or a loss of privacy, the propensity for human depravity to creep into all aspects of our live exists online as well. That is why Safer Internet Day is so important. It’s an opportunity for us to make our online experience better by making it safer. This needs to happen at four levels: the individuals in the family, the industry and society and the state.
Just like the seat belt and looking left and right at the zebra crossing, individual responsibility, car manufacturers and government play their part in making the roads safer. This must also be the case online. Parents need to teach their children what appropriate behaviour online looks like; the dos and don’ts which will change with age. Here schools can help.
I didn’t mention educational institutions in my list of four, because as far as I can tell, this sector is one of the most switched on when it comes to online safety. But educational institutions and parents or guardians need to be helped by the industry and by Government. It is a travesty that excellent websites like Facebook or YouTube can become as large and important as they are in our society in such a short time and yet we still cannot have internet access which is porn free. If we want to ensure that our children and young people cannot access hardcore pornography, as we do in the offline environment, we still do not have a mechanism such as the watershed, or tinted windows and age-restricted access to the sex shop. Sure there is software that can provide a filter, but they are often complicated to install and so parents opt not to use them. More can be done.
Because the internet is constantly evolving and throwing up conundrums which include an ethical dimension and because Government and laws take so long to introduce and implement, it isn’t always the right thing to seek legislation to make the online experience safer. That is why it is crucial that Google’s proverb, ‘do no harm’ needs to be taken further by the industry and backed by Government, to make sure they do good.
Claire Perry MP has asked the Government to ensure that industry provide an online experience that filters out pornography unless adults choose to opt in to being able to access it. Government Ministers think it is a great idea whose time has come. The Bailey Review into Sexualisation and Commercialisation made similar recommendations but the industry has dragged its feet on the proposal and only one company, Talk Talk (who deserve to be commended by being named), have acted on the proposal.
It is not a silver bullet. Parents will need to keep engaged and educators will need to continue to teach children how to keep safe. The industry and Government are doing some things—Safer Internet Day is but one example. However, internet service providers need to move harder and faster and Government needs to keep them accountable so that our children will be able to access a porn free internet.
If you want to learn more about Safer Internet Day and how to help your kids stay safer online, why not head over to the UK Safer Internet Centre at www.saferinternet.org.uk
Lauri Moyle is a consultant on remote gambling and child internet safety for CARE and a fellow of the Institute for Faith and Culture
