Protection of minors begins with the competence in which their parents handle media at home
The worldwide data communications network poses a danger to children and young persons. Quite often, children are subjected to online sexual assaults made by paedophilic Internet users.
Both the political and economic worlds have responded: Stricter laws regarding protection for children and young persons that shield children above all from pornographic and extremist content and content that glorifies violence have already been implemented in a number of countries. Beyond this, businesses are working hard on the development of filter programs and age verification systems. However, in many countries – including European states – there is quite a bit of catching up to do.
Legal and technical measures, though, cannot replace the parental guidance that children and young persons truly need when surfing on the Internet. This guidance remains the most effective protection against damaging and illegal Internet content for the technology’s youngest users.
naiin in the fight for effective legal protection for children and young persons on the Internet
In many cases - if even in existence - the legal regulations regarding the protection of children and young persons on the Internet are not adequately adapted to the worldwide data communications network and are therefore doomed to failure from the very start. The question of which content could truly adversely affect children and young persons in their development is generally pushed into the background. Similarly, plans addressing these issues are seldom implemented.
naiin’s primary task is to prepare and deploy transnational standards in the global Internet economy. By combating illegal content in the worldwide data communications network, naiin also obviously takes a proactive stance against the spread of content that is harmful to young people.
Educating the public, especially parents, is another requirement in this area. This is because no number of clever measures designed to better the protection of young persons can replace parental guidance. Legislators are certainly expected to enact sensible plans and approaches to the problem. However, populist measures that could end in the overregulation of a medium that simply cannot be compared to either TV or radio should be rejected as counterproductive.
