Beyond bans: Finding effective solutions to keep children safe online

At a recent social function, I came across a scenario common among teens today. A teenage girl asked her mother a few times if she could get the WiFi password from the hosts so she could surf Instagram. While the mother denied permission initially, she eventually relented.

Over the past few years, especially since COVID-19, conversations around children’s increasing internet use and its effects on their mental and physical health have been plenty. Social media is known to play a role in affecting users’ self-esteem with unrealistic and often edited images; platform algorithms ensure that users are hooked through the constant loop of content that is based on the user’s activity history, thereby making it addictive; and most importantly, the fact that technology platforms are designed to exploit the feel-good dopamine release from positive feedback such as likes and retweets.

As a response, governments issued several guidelines, advisories, and legislation, while technology platforms frequented by children introduced safety and privacy features. Yet, the reported statistics of abuse and exploitation of children online are staggering. According to a global survey, 54 per cent of the young population surveyed reported having experienced online sexual harm before they turned 18 years old. Closer home, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), cybercrimes against minors increased by 32 per cent in 2022 compared to the previous year. The offences include child sexual abuse material, dissemination of obscene material involving children, cyber stalking, and bullying.

One shouldn’t be taken by surprise to know that many children join social networking sites much before the legal age. A study commissioned by the National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) in 2020, which covered about 3500 children, 1500 parents, and over 700 teachers, found that 37.8 per cent of 10-year-olds surveyed held Facebook accounts, and 24.3 per cent children of the same age had profiles on Instagram. A study conducted by Space2Grow revealed 40 per cent of children accessing social media in the area of research were pre-teens.

Whose responsibility is it anyway?

We are thus presented with a conundrum. Whose responsibility is it to ensure the online safety of children? Many actors place an undue share of responsibility on the shoulders of parents, as well as with teachers and children themselves. But are all parents, teachers, and children equally adept and equipped with the knowledge and information required to achieve child online safety? This is an especially tricky question in a nation like India, where there are vast differences in literacy, education, and social currency.

Space2Grow recently conducted discussions with parents and children from rural and urban parts of India to understand their views and opinions on the use of social media by children and its effects. While designing policies, programs, and interventions, we oftentimes miss the people to whom it really matters—in this case, parents and children. The participants suggested several solutions, such as for social media use among children to be phased in an age-appropriate manner, the need for open communication between parents and children and safe spaces for children to address their concerns and share their experiences, the need to raise awareness and enable more conversations around this topic, and the dangers of targeted advertising and marketing towards children. In fact, one parent who had a previous stint as a social media marketing professional shared how she felt a moral dilemma at work knowing the company’s business strategies are detrimental to the well-being of children. This brings us to a crucial question.

Is a blanket social media ban an effective solution?

Earlier this month, the government of Australia decided to ban social media for children under 16 years of age. Calls for bans have also been sounded closer home. In 2023, the Karnataka High Court discussed the idea of increasing the age limit for the use of social media to 18 or 21 years. Interestingly, many of the parents and children Space2Grow spoke to felt that a blanket ban would not be an effective solution, a logic Space2Grow shares.

The crux of the matter is that the onus of children’s online safety should not be placed squarely and almost entirely on the shoulders of caregivers, a solution akin to placing a band-aid on a broken bone. Not only will it not serve the purpose of keeping children safe, but it absolves big tech of responsibility and accountability towards creating products that are safe for children by design.

Again, it’ll be almost impossible to implement a ban of this nature. Other, more grave concerns also arise. Underage children can, resultantly, indulge in clandestine social media activity, which can considerably reduce the already abysmal reportage of online abuse and exploitation to authorities.

Further, they can engage on shared devices of adults, which have no child controls. One of the children we spoke to said, “Taking away things will only make you want more, and then we will find ways. What we need is safe online experiences”.

In the interactions with rural children and parents, a child asked a pertinent perspective: We access lots of learning platforms and information that support our daily studies, which we never had access to earlier. Is banning a solution? What’s interesting is that children in both rural and urban areas felt banning is not the solution, and they need support to know more on how to keep themselves safe online.

A call to action

It is high time that the focus on the responsibility of parents and teachers towards keeping children safe be shifted to those creating products that are unsafe, addictive, and exploitative by nature and designed with profit as the primary aim.

As one of the parents noted astutely, tech giants such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs placed restrictions on their children’s usage of the products and technology that they helped create. We can’t allow #childsafetyfirst to just be a catchphrase any longer. Solutions towards keeping children safe online need to be creative, evidence-based, age-appropriate, and most importantly, child-centric, balancing advantages with the obvious disadvantages of social networking platforms.

The author is CEO, Space 2 Grow. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.