How to help children stay safe online: parenting technologies and regulatory approaches
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Ksenia Karjakina, GR Manager, Google Russia
Recently, Google won the Runet Prize for the Handbook on child safety on the Internet .
The Handbook describes Google’s security technologies that help parents and teachers protect children from adult content, violence, and other materials that you, our users, find inappropriate.
If you find materials on our resources that violate the principles of our community , you can reportus about it. In this case, our team will carefully study the marked materials and either delete them or impose appropriate age restrictions. This is one of the key tools that allows us to respond to user complaints and make the Internet more secure.
At the same time, we do not pre-moderate the content, do not create “white lists” and in no case make decisions for you - you can turn the security settings on and off yourself at any time.
We are sure that not a single filter is 100% effective. We know this because every day we improve not only Google’s search technologies, but also the security tools built into the search engine and video viewing mode on YouTube. Moreover, all over the world, the very idea of filtering on the Internet is increasingly being questioned: how can you try to protect children from negative content and not break the line of freedom of information and access to knowledge? How not to harm excessive prohibitions? And can you be sure of the reliability of the filter by leaving the child with the Internet alone?
Age-related labeling and user identification, filtering on the side of the backbone provider, restricting access to social media - these and similar initiatives from different angles are discussed by lawmakers in many countries and mostly fail: tight regulation slows down the development of the Internet and innovation and, moreover, how shows international practice, does not solve the tasks.
Instead, Internet companies are joining forces to help children stay safe online. In the EU countries, for example, a Declaration has been in force for several yearsprinciples of self-regulation, in which Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. not only develop special technologies for security and parental control, but also make a lot of efforts to increase the Internet literacy of users - both children and adults themselves.
We are convinced that it is such a flexible approach, based on the principles of individual security settings and parental control, that helps us, with the support of Internet users, effectively deal with inappropriate content.
For us, the safety of children on the Internet is not a gadget or technology, but a way of thinking, and we hope that you share it with us.
Recently, Google won the Runet Prize for the Handbook on child safety on the Internet .
The Handbook describes Google’s security technologies that help parents and teachers protect children from adult content, violence, and other materials that you, our users, find inappropriate.
If you find materials on our resources that violate the principles of our community , you can reportus about it. In this case, our team will carefully study the marked materials and either delete them or impose appropriate age restrictions. This is one of the key tools that allows us to respond to user complaints and make the Internet more secure.
At the same time, we do not pre-moderate the content, do not create “white lists” and in no case make decisions for you - you can turn the security settings on and off yourself at any time.
We are sure that not a single filter is 100% effective. We know this because every day we improve not only Google’s search technologies, but also the security tools built into the search engine and video viewing mode on YouTube. Moreover, all over the world, the very idea of filtering on the Internet is increasingly being questioned: how can you try to protect children from negative content and not break the line of freedom of information and access to knowledge? How not to harm excessive prohibitions? And can you be sure of the reliability of the filter by leaving the child with the Internet alone?
Age-related labeling and user identification, filtering on the side of the backbone provider, restricting access to social media - these and similar initiatives from different angles are discussed by lawmakers in many countries and mostly fail: tight regulation slows down the development of the Internet and innovation and, moreover, how shows international practice, does not solve the tasks.
Instead, Internet companies are joining forces to help children stay safe online. In the EU countries, for example, a Declaration has been in force for several yearsprinciples of self-regulation, in which Google, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. not only develop special technologies for security and parental control, but also make a lot of efforts to increase the Internet literacy of users - both children and adults themselves.
We are convinced that it is such a flexible approach, based on the principles of individual security settings and parental control, that helps us, with the support of Internet users, effectively deal with inappropriate content.
For us, the safety of children on the Internet is not a gadget or technology, but a way of thinking, and we hope that you share it with us.