Outline Of The Risks Associated With Children And Young People's Internet Use

Outline the risks associated with children and young people’s internet use. Is industry regulation the best policy approach to increase online safety?

We currently live in the era among the new generation of youth and children who live off the internet. The era when children and young people had to go out and socialise physically and verbally in order to make new friends has been replaced with new ways of making friends online by using social networking and chat rooms. The era when children used their imagination and built tents is now replaced with playing video games for a large amount of time. An article written by L. Larson ‘Children’s Time Outdoors’ states that children spend less time outdoors and more time indoors. 57% of parents state

However, some online risks do result to harm and illegal activity such as sexual exploitation, harassment, sexual grooming also distribution of child abuse and sexual images (Gov, UKCCIS guide,2016).There are several methods and polices which address these issues also prevent these illegal activities from occurring, one of these polices is the industry regulation. The industry regulation is a practice enforced in order to increase child safety and to tackle the sexual abuse of children online .In addition, the industry regulation consists regulations such as Internet Watch Foundation, filters to block illegal content and default content blocking on pay as you go mobiles (NSPCC online child sexual abuse, 2016). The Internet Watch Foundation aims to tackle child sexual exploitation around the world also prevents exploitation by creating the IWF Image hash list in 2015. The IWF hash list allows companies to prevent the upload of a child sexual image and the sharing of an image through company’s services as the hash light automatically matches known images before appearing on a company’s services. Also, the hash list ensures that networks are safer also ensures protection for the customers. Furthermore, IWF turns child sexual abuse into unique codes in order to keep services free

Parental control provides parents with a range of platforms in order to prevent their child from online risks. Websites such as Google allow parents to block inappropriate adult contents by using ‘safe search mode’. Also, as we are currently living in the era of new technology, application platforms such as Google Play store and Apple App store provide parents with age restrictions on certain apps for their children (Gov, UKCCIS guide, 2016). In the Bailey review produced in 2011 ‘letting children be children’, recommendation 5 states that parents should be able to block adult content on the internet easier, the recommendation was reviewed by UKCCIS, the UKCCIS advised that the internet should be family-friendly accessible. Four main ISPs such as BT, Sky and Talk Talk agreed to the code of conduct. These ISPs now provide a service were adult content is restricted when using the home internet and broadband (GOV Bailey report, 2011).This is beneficial as it prevents children from accessing content such as pornography as research has shown that by 11, 28% of 11-12 year olds reported that they have seen pornography. 65% of 15 – 16 years reported that they have seen pornography (Martellozzo.E, 2016). Furthermore, parental control also offers control over mobile phones, this is offered by mobile phone networks such as EE, Vodaphone and Three