Building Safer Social Networks

The UK Home Office’s Child Protection Task Force has produced a draft industry dis­cus­sion document called Good Practice Guidance for Social Networking and User Interactive Service. What you and I would probably call Web 2.0. Once finished and public, the document will seem­ingly supplant the existing guidelines in the report (PDF) pub­lished last year on Good practice guidance for the mod­er­a­tion of inter­active services for children.

It’s fairly weighty and brings together a wealth of research from soci­olo­gists, child psy­chi­at­rists and internet researchers. It’s also a well-​​informed and mature dis­cus­sion. The members of the task force are industry insiders and child devel­op­ment experts. While the dangers that can visit children via the Internet are fully acknow­ledged, the positive elements of social networks are also explored, citing evidence that teens use virtual exper­i­ences for self expres­sion and to safely test and exper­i­ment with their own sexu­ality, for example. It also recog­nises that those who end up in trouble often do so as a willed act and are more likely to be vul­ner­able in the first place. The Internet and social networks aren’t viewed as neces­sarily cor­rupting but as a neutral tool that needs good, safety-​​oriented design and sensible instruc­tions for use if acci­dents are to be avoided.

There are more encour­aging words in the Guidelines for Parents on the need to strike a balance when it comes to trying to ensure their children’s safety online:

• Children and young people have strong views about their privacy and it will be important for you to help your child to use social net­working sites respons­ibly and safely.
• There is an important balance between edu­cating children and young people about the risks online, viewing what they are doing and actually trusting them in their use of social net­working sites, and allowing them a degree of autonomy.

Rather than bans and restric­tions for users, the onus is placed upon the owners and pub­lishers of social networks to ensure safety when it comes to the design of their networks and the ways in which children can and can’t inter­ract with each other and with adults. Specific guidelines are given on the amount of personal inform­a­tion that is col­lected and exposed, the removal of search for material from children under 18, content screening and mod­er­a­tion, and easy mech­an­isms for instig­ating complaints.

Providing that the politi­cians aren’t allowed too close to this dis­cus­sion and attempt to use the debate to drum up support in Conservative Middle England, it seems possible that we’ll be able to avoid some­thing as counter-​​productive and ignorant as the US DOPA legislation.

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• Children safer online
• Who Uses Social Networks, and How?
• Growth of Social Networks (or Not)