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A major reset of the internet to make it much safer is how Ofcom’s Gill Whitehead described the communications watchdog’s child safety announcements to me. But can it really deliver that kind of a sea-change in the protection of children online? Turning faulty tech off then on again is a tried and trusted fix, but “resetting the net” is considerably more challenging. First of all, consider the scale of the task: while the focus is on the largest and riskiest social media firms.….Story continues…..
By: Chris Vallance
Source: BBC
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Critics:
The Kids Online Safety Act, if signed into law, would require Internet service platforms to take measures to reduce online dangers for these users via a “duty of care” provision, requiring Internet service platforms to comply by reducing and preventing harmful practices towards minors, including bullying and violence, content “promoting” suicide, eating disorders, or substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and advertisements for illegal products such as drugs, tobacco, or alcohol.
If signed into law, internet service platforms would be required to include features that would protect minors and their data, the ability to opt-out of algorithmic recommendations and delete their account as well as any associated data, restricting communications from non-minors, and disabling addictive product features like such as autoplay for videos or platform rewards.
The bill would also require internet service platforms to default to the highest possible privacy settings for accounts that belong to minors.Internet service platforms would be required to introduce tools for parents to better protect their children and make it easier for both parents and minors are able to report harmful content and to undergo independent, third-party audits and issue public transparency reports detailing possible harms to minors and the efforts to address said harms.
As amended in February 2024, most of the provisions in the bill would be enforced by individual state attorneys generals with broader enforcement falling to the Federal Trade Commission, having an oversight over what content is deemed “harmful” to children and enforcing the duty of care provision. In prior versions of the senate version of the bill, state attorneys general would’ve enforced the duty of care provisions, but due to concerns from LGBTQ activist groups, it was changed to be enforced by the FTC.
Of those who reported having experienced online harassment in a Pew Research poll, 16% said the most recent incident had occurred in an online game. A study from National Sun Yat–sen University observed that children who enjoyed violent video games were significantly more likely to both experience and perpetrate cyberbullying.
Another study that discusses the direct correlation between exposure to violent video games and cyber bullying also took into account personal factors such as “duration of playing online games, alcohol consumption in the last 3 months, parents drunk in the last 3 months, anger, hostility, ADHD, and a sense of belonging” as potential contributing factors of cyberbullying.
Gaming was a more common venue for men in which to experience harassment, whereas women’s harassment tended to occur more via social media. Most respondents considered gaming culture to be equally welcoming to both genders, though 44% thought it favored men. Sexual harassment in gaming generally involves slurs directed towards women, sex role stereotyping, and overaggressive language.
Keza MacDonald writes in The Guardian that sexism exists in gaming culture, but is not mainstream within it. U.S. President Barack Obama made reference to the harassment of women gamers during his remarks in honor of Women’s History Month. Competitive gaming scenes have been less welcoming of women than has broader gaming culture. In an internet-streamed fighting game competition, one female gamer forfeited a match after the coach of her team, Aris Bakhtanians, stated, “The sexual harassment is part of the culture. If you remove that from the fighting game community, it’s not the fighting game community.”
The comments were widely condemned by gamers, with comments in support of sexual harassment “drowned out by a vocal majority of people expressing outrage, disappointment and sympathy.” The incident built momentum for action to counter sexual harassment in gaming. Some game developers have been subjected to harassment and death threats by players upset by changes to a game or by a developer’s online policies.
Harassment also occurs in reaction to critics such as Jack Thompson or Anita Sarkeesian, whom some fans see as threats to the medium. Various people have been harassed in connection with the Gamergate controversy. Harassment related to gaming is not of a notably different severity or tenor compared to online harassment motivated by other subcultures or advocacy issues.
Other developers have been harassed simply due to misogyny or anti–LGBTQ+ stances. A notable case was the death of “Near”, the developer of Higan, a console emulator, who took their own life after becoming the subject to ridicule from members of the online Kiwi Farms board following their announcement of being nonbinary. Sabotage among rival crowdfunding campaigns is a recurring problem for projects related to gaming.
Some instances of swatting in games such as Call of Duty and League of Legends have resulted in law enforcement SWAT units called on individuals’ homes as a prank. On December 28, 2017, Wichita, Kansas, police officers killed Andrew Finch at his Kansas home in a reported swatting prank.
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