Update: UN adopts General Comment on children's online rights (February 11, 2021)

The United Nations now recognises that children’s rights extend to the online realm. These rights - and the responsibilities they invoke on world governments and corporates regarding issues such as children’s online safety - are outlined in the Committee on the Rights of the Child's General Comment 25.

Instagram's 'nudity' rules don't keep kids safe

Recently Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri was questioned by online celebrity news group The Shade Room over the removal of a live post, hosted by Tory Lanez' 'Quarantine Radio' account. In his response Mosseri stated: 

Over the past few months, we’ve been busy preparing submissions into various Government inquiries. Just this month, two of our submissions have been made public- our submission into the Review of Australian classification regulation, and our submission on Online Safety Legislation reform.

Collective Shout welcomes the opportunity to contribute to Online Safety legislative reform. We support intentions to consolidate and harmonise current laws and to ensure streamlining and consistency in a range of digital offences. We are especially pleased to see plans for an expansion of protection against cyberbullying, cyber abuse, image-based abuse and seriously harmful content. As the digital landscape is in a constant state of flux, new opportunities arise – and with them new dangers. This necessitates updated legislation to ensure a safer online environment prioritising human rights and community welfare.

Online child safety advocate Rachel Downie says parents are unaware of about 80 per cent of what their teen engages in on the internet at home.

Ms Downie, a former teacher, told ABC she had surveyed more than 20,000 students over the last five years, asking "what's something you do on the internet at home that you know you're not allowed to do?"

The results were concerning, with teens viewing violent real-life content, such as fights, muggings and pornography that looks non-consensual.

Photo by Rachel Downie 

From ABC:

Ms Downie said 51 per cent of children, mostly boys, had viewed pornography or other illicit material, while one-fifth of respondents admitted to bullying, trolling and stalking for fun.

For some behaviours, the children themselves were screaming out for stronger regulation.

She said parents were often unaware of how far "down the spiral kids are".

"After every presentation, and it's usually with mums, they want to come chat to me afterwards about the fact that their 12, 13, 14-year-old son is addicted to pornography.

Ms Downie said it is a confusing, unchartered time for parents, exacerbated by the demands of school and society for children to be technologically savvy.

"What we're doing is 'ping, you're 12 here's your phone', 'ping you're 13, here's your own computer' and it's happening much earlier.

Ms Downie went on to give advice to parents on what they can do:

Ultimately, Ms Downie said adequate parental supervision and keeping conversations open is the key to tackling the issue.

"If you're not checking you wouldn't know, and it's not good enough anymore to say 'hey my 12-year-old daughter is a great kid, I really trust her'.

"I'm certainly not an advocate for banning everything because that's not the world we live in, but I am a very strong advocate for your need to know what they're doing.

"It's about being a grown-up and being the boss and getting your techno power back and saying, 'look we're going to set some boundaries around this stuff at home'."

Ms Downie said having those conversations with children and teens was crucial to building helping young people cope in the real and emotional online world.

Opening those lines of communication and setting boundaries should be done earlier, than later. 

Read the article in full here.

Geelong females are being targeted in a pornographic online forum posting sexual images of women and girls without their consent, reported the Geelong Advertiser this week:

A recent post on the image-sharing forum, which shows revenge porn, seeks “good ones” from Geelong and Werribee alongside images of a female in states of undress.

Another post, from December, seeks nudes from Geelong and Werribee of a specific woman who claimed to work in the sex industry.

The site has users from around Australia, and even requests for images of girls who attended certain schools.

Users share images taken from social media platforms including Snapchat.

We were approached for comment:

Grassroots activist group Collective Shout is “frequently hearing stories from adolescent girls of sexual harassment from their male classmates, sexist bullying, requests for nude images, unsolicited sexual images,” spokeswoman Caitlin Roper said.

Ms Roper said the “discussion is often centred on why women take sexual images rather than why men distribute these images without consent to punish and humiliate women.”

“This is not unlike much of the discourse around rape and sexual assault, where women are again being held responsible for the criminal acts of men and expected to modify their behaviour in order to avoid being victimised,” she said.

But we cannot adequately address the rise of image based abuse, or so-called ‘revenge porn’, without considering the significant role of pornography and its toxic messages about men, women and sex.

Mainstream pornography is a “distortion of respect based sexuality”, reinforcing notions of male dominance and aggression and female sexual submission. It fuels a sense of entitlement in men and boys to the bodies of women and girls, who are portrayed as always ‘up for it’ and as existing for men’s use and pleasure. In porn, women’s humanity is diminished.

Pornography is the primary tool of sex education for young people. We can’t underestimate its power in fuelling sexist attitudes towards women. When boys’ introduction to sexuality is the filmed sexual abuse and humiliation of women in pornography, it has an impact on how their real-world interactions with women and girls, and we are seeing it here.

Victims are being encouraged to report images to the Office of the eSafety Commissioner so they can seek “rapid removal” of the material.

Read the full article here.