IGF 2019 WS #137 Kids online: what we know and can do to keep them safe.

Organizer 1: Alexandre Barbosa, NIC.br
Organizer 2: Ana Laura Martinez, Nic.br
Organizer 3: Fabio Senne, NIC.br/Cetic.br
Organizer 4: Guilherme Canela Godoi , UNESCO

Speaker 1: AMANDA THIRD, Technical Community, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Alexandre Barbosa, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 3: María Alejandra Erramuspe, Government, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 4: Wenying Su , Intergovernmental Organization, Asia-Pacific Group

Moderator

Guilherme Canela Godoi , Intergovernmental Organization, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)

Online Moderator

Fabio Senne, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)

Rapporteur

Ana Laura Martinez, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)

Format

Panel - Auditorium - 90 Min

Policy Question(s)

What do we know? • According to the available evidence, what are the current trends in the activities that children perform online? What risks do they experience online? • Specifically, to what extent are children exposed to harassment and hate speech online? What are the singularities of these issues considering gender? • What do children have to say about their own safety online? What needs to be done? • How can children’s rights to participation, access to information, and freedom of speech be preserved and balanced with their right to be protected from violence, exploitation and sexual abuse in the online environment? • How can children´s resilience be increased by means of capacity building, media literacy, support and guidance in the digital environment? • What legal, regulatory and technical instruments need to be put in place to meet the needs of the children and harness digital opportunities for them? • How can children’s rights be embedded in the activities and policies of international Internet governance institutions? How can the gender perspective be integrated within the children´s rights perspective for such matters? How can it be done? • What role should different stakeholders play in cybersecurity capacity building approaches? • What multi-stakeholder collaboration arrangements have been put in place in the regions represented in the panel, and with what outcomes? • Can these initiatives be replicated in other regions? What would be the viability and main challenges of doing so?

SDGs

GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-Being
GOAL 4: Quality Education
GOAL 5: Gender Equality
GOAL 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
GOAL 17: Partnerships for the Goals

Description:

AGENDA Introduction by the panel moderator (5’). Moderation: Alexandre Barbosa (Cetic.brUNESCO).

 1. Launch of comparative reports: evidence for policymaking. Setting the scene (40'):

  • Daniel Kardefelt-Winther (UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti)
  • Sonia Livingstone (LSE, UK) - Comments on Global Kids Online Report
  • Cristina Ponte (Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal) - Comments on European Kids Online Report
  • Daniela Trucco (ECLAC) - Comments on Latin American Kids Online Report

2. Debate: implications of the data for policymaking and for guaranteeing children´s rights (45')

  • Guilherme Canela (UNESCO)
  • Alejandra Erramuspe (AGESIC, Uruguay)
  • Amanda Third (Western Sydney University, Australia)
  • Wenying Su (Child Protection Section, UNICEF, China)
  • Comments and questions from the audience, both present and remote

METHODOLOGY AND FACILITATION STRATEGY Each panellist will be previously briefed to prepare a short presentation organized on the basis of the policy questions, and bringing a regional perspective. After the presentations, the moderator will organize a participatory discussion, raising questions linked to the policy questions and making room for questions from the audience (both present and remote). Children’s own voice will be present through children´s participation in the qualitative research workshops previously carried out in the frame of the facilitating children’s consultations for the UNCRC General Comment on Children and the Digital Environment, in which the presenter´s organization participates. Other members of the networks dedicated to research on online children and to advocating for online children´s protection and promotion, like Global Kids Online and Latin America Kids Online will participate remotely in the panel discussions.

Expected Outcomes: - Increased visibility and awareness of children´s rights within the Internet Governance agenda. - A thoroughly discussed and updated roadmap of the main challenges and opportunities for online children, stemming from multi-stakehorlder discussions and enriched by the audicience´s input (including both present and online participants). -Clear identification of action paths and feasible multi-stakeholder arrangements in the regions represented.

Interaction will be encouraged in the different lines: a) Between panelists. Panelists will be encouraged to ask each other at least one question, in addition to answering the moderator´s and audience´s questions. b) Between panelists and the audience. The audience will be able to ask questions right after each panelist intervention. Questions will be made in real time. Members of the audience who prefer to do so, will be able to send the moderator written questions as well. c) From remote participants. Questions and comments from the online participation official platform and other social media (Twitter) will be compiled by a designated team member, and read right after every round of questions from the onsite audience.

Relevance to Theme: In a context of increasing access to the Internet by children, where one every three Internet users is a child (UNICEF, 2017), the relevance of knowing how they use it and how they handle the risks and opportunities associated with that use is indisputable. The available data suggests a significant diffusion of both home and mobile Internet access by children, particularly since 2012 (Global Kids Online, 2016; UNICEF, 2017). In other words, over the latest years, more children have gone online worldwide, with a shift from a predominantly middle-class access to access by poorer children (yet with great variation between countries). This means that both the risks and opportunities associated with digital inclusion have diversified, as have the knowledge, skills and behaviour patterns of the new users. In this context, the phenomenon of massive child online presence is relatively new and, therefore, the reliable knowledge about it still scarce, particularly in the Global South. In order to formulate comprehensive policies and to implement effective protection and promotion measures targeting online children, it is germane to approach the topic from an evidence-based perspective and to avoid both unnecessarily magnifying risks and underestimating potential benefits of the digital inclusion. In this context, the reference to evidence does not merely involve considering the traditional available data sources, usually statistical data. As it has been frequently pointed out (among others, by Faro Digital NGO and UNICEF), the approaches to child online safety have almost exclusively portrayed an adult perspective. Failing to consider children´s own stake on the issue entails not only limiting their right to expressing their voice on matters that directly involve them, but it may also lead to policy and communication design flaws. In other words, projects and communication materials often speak a language and pose issues that differ from children´s understanding of them, leading to failures in reaching the target audience and, moreover, in meeting children´s needs. An evidence-based approach to this topic needs to encompass the complexity of the issue, considering both the supply and demand sides. The former, including Internet and platform features, laws, regulations and policy measures; the latter comprising children´s perspectives, actions, skills and resources, along with those of their parent´s. A specific value of the proposed workshop, therefore, is that discussions will be grounded on recent, nationally representative and reliable data on children´s use of the Internet and on children´s own perspective, which will be brought to the table as a result of a series of workshops organized globally to hear their voice. Furthermore, the very production of the data and the experiences showcased are framed in multi-stakeholder collaboration arrangements, representing an example of good practice in terms of what needs to be done in order to promote child safer use of the Internet and how to further harness the opportunities associated with it. Guaranteeing opportunities for digital inclusion and lifelong learning, as expressed by SDG 4, cannot be achieved without gender equity and without meeting the gender-specific challenges faced by child internet users; therefore the direct relation of the proposed panel with SDGs 4 and 5. Moreover, keeping children safe and healthy, as expressed in SDG 3, is among the most important goals for children in the SDGs, and it entails considering the threats and opportunities posed by the online environment. Finally, ending violence against children by 2030 includes ending sexual abuse, harassment and hate speech both offline and online, something that is, in turn, key to achieving peaceful and inclusive societies, as expressed by SDG 16.

Relevance to Internet Governance: With one every three Internet users being a child, a generic or age-blind approach to “users” in Internet governance regimes, policies or regulations may certainly fall short of effectively meeting children´s needs and guaranteeing their rights, since children constitute a population with very specific developmental characteristics, vulnerabilities and rights. In this sense, this proposal is relevant since it brings children´s rights to a focus within the Internet Governance agenda. Given the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, in November 2019, this proposal is particularly timely to guarantee covering the topic. Complementarily, the relevance of the proposed approach lies in the fact that by bringing together researchers, policy-makers and children´s voice to the table, it guarantees an approach characterized by a multi-stakeholder perspective, with the added value of organizing the discussion on an evidence-based approach, including children’s own voice. Furthermore, both the data production and the policy measures to be discussed have taken place, from the onset, within multi-stakeholder approaches, where collaboration between government, civil society and the academia have crystallized both in joint financing and planning of the research, and the ulterior policy discussions. By disseminating knowledge about children´s access, use, skills, opportunities and risks faced online and stimulating the discussion about challenges and actions needed for a safer digital inclusion, the proposed workshop is also relevant to Internet Governance by pointing in the direction of feasible courses of action. Discussing rules, decision-making and programmes needed to shape the evolution of the Internet towards a safer place for children and an ambient that provides better quality opportunities to them impacts the right to digital inclusion and to quality education as expressed in SDG 4 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

Online Participation

A moderator will be organizing the remote participation in the online tool and will be answering questions, commenting with the participants, and he will bring some of the comments or questions to the panelists and present audience.

Proposed Additional Tools: Remote participation will also be facilitated through a hashtag in Twitter.

1. Key Policy Questions and Expectations

What do we know about children´s access and use of the internet that can inform the policymaking process?

How to protect children from risks and damage, without hindering other rights, such as to free expression?

What was expected for the session was to share a global and regional update on the most relevant and recent data about online children, and to hold a debate about the most relevant policy issues stemming from those data. Together, these points feed a research and policy agenda that has children´s right at the centre.

2. Summary of Issues Discussed

There was full agreement that more reliable data (both quantitative and qualitative) is needed for improving digital policies and education campaigns targeting children. 

There was support to the view that a journalistic approach to online harm, as a matter of fact, creates the perception that such problems occur more often and affect more people than they actually do. Therefore, parents and the general public also have to be targets of the communication of the results of such research.  

3. Policy Recommendations or Suggestions for the Way Forward

One of the main points highlighted by the data shared and the debate that followed it, is to acknowledge the ubiquitous online presence of children, yet with pervasive inequities, both in the degree and quality of internet access, and in the skills development opportunities for its use.  

As an actionable recommendation, including children as active parts both in communication campaigns and policy design, including internet governance decisions affecting children, was strongly emphasized by most panel participants.

Actions need to be implemented in the various levels affecting digital inclusion: from legal and regulatory instruments, to educational interventions, need to be put in place to meet the needs of the children.

Another actionable recommendation is not to focus regulation or communication campaigns solely in the risk and damage issues affecting children, but mainstreaming their right to expression and participation in a balanced fashion. The Internet was portrayed as a privileged setting in which children may thrive and express themselves with little adult mediation. Bearing in mind that greater internet use is associated with greater risks, in turn.

Digital literacy programs aimed at parents were highlighted as key initiatives for keeping children safe and healthy in the digital environment.

4. Other Initiatives Addressing the Session Issues

One of the main experiences showcased in the panel that clearly tackles the issues covered in the panel was that of Uruguay and its national ICT in education policy Plan Ceibal. For more information: https://www.ceibal.edu.uy/es

5. Making Progress for Tackled Issues

There was broad agreement in that for addressing these issues and achieve a safe and stimulating digital environment for children it is necessary to involve both public and private stakeholders, that children need to have a voice and participation, that parents and teachers also have to be target of policy and education campaigns and that internet governance, in general, needs to end being child-blind.

6. Estimated Participation

There were 50 participants present in the workshop, 60% of them, women. We estimate another 50 online participants, with similar proportion of women. Out of the 9 panellists, 7 were women.

 

7. Reflection to Gender Issues

Gender issues were covered throughout the session, on the one hand, by showing the data by gender, therefore identifying internet access and use patterns that differ for boys and girls. Parental mediations also proved to have peculiarities when the kid is either a boy or a girl. Both issues present, in turn, different patterns in the different regions covered (Latin America, Europe, and the Global South). Policies and measures were discussed taking into account these variations and specificities.

8. Session Outputs

A comparative report of the Kids Online studies from Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay was pre-launched at the session, titled: Infancia y adolescência em la era digital (edited by Dantiela Trucco and Amalia Palma - Cepal), featuring chapters from the session organizers and participants from the Latin America Kids Online network (LACKO). This represents a landmark for LACKO, which is a research and collaboration network aimed at producing reliable data on online children and fostering its use for policymakind and advancing children´s rights, in particular, digital rights. LACKO adopts the conceptual and methodological framework proposed by Global Kids online, which facilitates the production of internationally comparable data and shared knowledge on the issue. Unicef is a key partner of this effort. The report is expected to be published in the first quarter of 2020. 

The Global Kids Online Report launched during the session can be accessed at:

https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/1060-growing-up-in-a-connected-world.html