We must all be aware of risks of online platforms

Adrian Weckler

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September 09 2021 02:30 AM

There is one main concern we should all have with the revelation that a third of Irish kids aged between eight and 12 are posting videos of themselves on TikTok and YouTube. It’s the threat of predators.

No, this is not fretful pearl-rattling; it’s a real danger acknowledged both by YouTube and TikTok in some of the recently introduced restrictions that they themselves have applied to videos uploaded by kids.

YouTube had to shut down comments on videos made by teens after it found that predators were leaving comments on videos uploaded by young girls. It has now gone as far as to make teens’ videos private by default.

TikTok had a problem with predators sending sexually explicit messages to young teens, as unearthed in a BBC investigation. It has now had to shut down most messaging to teen users.

Thankfully, worst-case-scenario incidents from these threats are low. But with smart device ownership by eight to 12-year-olds in Ireland now at a record high 93pc, and social media or messaging accounts among the same age group at 84pc, it has to be a cautionary factor that parents will want to keep at the back of their minds.

It doesn’t help parents that there is almost no enforcement of the minimum age (13) on these social media platforms. While some of the services use an algorithm here and some metadata there to check whether a child might have fibbed about their age, for the most part, anyone who says they’re 13 (or 18, or 35) when they open an account is taken at their word.

It doesn’t help, either, that there is close to no State involvement in any of this.

Remember all those promises about an Online Safety Commissioner and that ‘the era of social media self-regulation is over’?

It has now been two years since the Government promised an Online Safety Commissioner. While the bill to enable this was unveiled last year, it is still nowhere close to producing an Online Safety Commissioner who might help deal with these matters.

Senior industry executives now think that the role won’t be appointed until at least 2023.

(Culture Minister Catherine Martin’s department declined to answer questions put to it by the Irish Independent yesterday on the matter.)

The figures from this CyberSafeKids survey, by far the biggest and most important of its kind in Ireland, paint a picture of tech companies, kids and parents having to find an accommodation between themselves.

There is some good news from this survey. By and large, young kids and their parents are in a dialogue with each other about what is being posted online. Child protection experts place a lot of importance on this element of making kids’ online activity safe.

Teachers, too, are becoming more involved. While that can be read in a negative light, it is also a sign that the generation of teachers who say they have no clue how to deal with the technology issues raised by kids is fading away.

Whether we like it or not, online platforms are now a permanent part of ordinary daily life for almost everyone between the ages of five and 95. We just need to bear the risks in mind.