8 February 2006 : 103 blog postings from 34 countries and 300 comments in just 24 hours - that's an impressive showing for the world's first internet safety blogathon!

The Safer Internet blogathon, put together by public-interest organisations, schools, libraries and national ministries and institutions across the world , mirrors multiple facets of cyber-society and the broad palette of issues it faces.

Cultural diversity and freedom of expression, social networking and file-sharing have come under the scrutiny of bloggers, along with the attendant issues of copyright, false identity, stranger danger, hacking, security threats and more.

Some organisations invited internauts to their blog simulator, and in several countries roles were reversed for a day, with children teaching teachers, parents and even a minister the ins and outs of surfing on internet.

Comments are still coming in, and are expected to continue until the very last moment at midnight GMT on 15 February.

As patron of Safer Internet Day, I want to thank you all for your contributions. This blogathon has given to all of us an opportunity to understand how internet safety issues are dealt with in the different countries, and to identify some good ideas.

Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media

"If we work together as defenders and professionals (with political willingness), we will be able to improve our capacity of protecting victims and act against those who take advantage of children."
Bernie Lajmanovich, Information Security Association, Argentina

"I am a 13 year old child and i use msn. i think it is a great place to chat to friends. but sometimes people pretend to be people they're not and try to find out information about you. it's pretty safe because you can block them and stuff and you dont have to talk to them if you dont feel safe. people think that its a bad place to chat because you dont know who it is. so all you can do is BE SAFE!!"
Emily

After having spoken to my class about internet safety, and bringing in an expert to talk to my students, I realize even more how important it is for students to learn about internet safety. The old safety message "Don't talk to strangers" just doesn't apply to members of a virtual world. And in that virtual world, with the anonymity of just a screen in front of them, children just don't realize all the traps and dangers unless they are taught about them. I think it should be compulsory for all students to have an internet safety session. Keep up the good work Netalert!
Betina, Australia

"I didn't think that putting pictures on the internet could be so dangerous, until we had a adult who specializes in internet safety come in and tell us all about how putting pictures on the internet could be a hazard to myself and my family, everyone in fact, i was putting pictures of myself on msn. Now him telling me about this stuff has made me stop and think before i do things on the internet. i think that internet safety should be a compulsory thing to be learnt due to how much it has helped me in being safe while on the internet."
Rhys

"I have always wished i could tell the whole world about me... and when i was like 10, I thought i could use the internet to do so... I never really got round to it... luckily. I'm glad that we got to learn about the dangers of the net..."
Chrissie

"I used to think the internet was safe until a friend of a friend of mine was about to meet someone they had met on the internet. i told her to have a good time. When she came back she was scared and frightened. So now I know, never trust the internet."
Charli

“Even 3 month babies have blogs nowadays. I didn’t know how to write at that time”.
Einis, Lithuania

I felt hassled on the Web once…it’s tough because you feel powerless when you see people saying terrible things about you and everyone can read it. I think what [Spanish node] Protegeles is offering is very good. If it happens to me again, I know what to do.
Penelope

"Let’s not fool ourselves, the solution is responsible parenting, not creating deficient and enslaving systems of control"
Federico Ponce de Leon

"Humans are, by nature, quite good at dealing with complexity - if you let them do it themselves and give them the right knowledge and tools to keep up with developments."
Peter Troxler

"Probably worth pointing out that illegally sharing music over the internet is *not* "effectively 'stealing'". It is actually breach of copyright. Breach of copyright and theft are morally two quite different offenses and are, quite appropriately, dealt with differently by law. It bugs me when people conflate the two."
Richard

"Hello! We are three Portuguese students and we have just started 'meeting' the problems of internet! We like surfing the internet to search information, and you? But we think there are some disadvantages:like violation of privacy, a lot of spam. However, we think that it is a good way to meet new people..."
Ana,Cátia and Adriana

Dr. Avshalom Aderet

We at ICRA, the Internet Content Rating Association, believe it is possible to both protect the rights of content providers to express themselves, without the need for censorship, while providing parents, teachers and other concerned adults the tools to protect children from potentially harmful or offensive material. We do this through an expertly created, content description system that allows web creators to self-label their content with a machine-readable tag or meta-data. This tag is then read by parental control filters and if the content is filtered out if it exceeds what the parents want their child to see.

Content labelling and filtering is only one part of the solution. Because the world of digital content is so vast and growing at an exponetial rate, we need a range of technical solutions that include artificial intelligence, URL block lists, word and image screening to piece together a comprehensive method to block unwanted material. We need a multitude of safety messages geared specifically for parents, for children, for teachers and for employers. And gonvernments have a legitimate role in ensuring existing laws impact on this new world without impeding the growth and innovation that has brought us such enormous benefits.

I know as a father how difficult it can be to keep up with my daughter's interest and curiousity on the web; encourgaging her to seek out and find text, photos and video for her homework projects or just for fun. I also know how just a simple slip of the keyboard or an innocent online search can take her off into areas I would never allow her to go in the "real" world. I have to find the right balance of caution and warnings while allowing her a growing freedom to reach out and discover for herself.

That's the challenge: to find the balance between fear of harm and the joy of tapping into the world's richest source of information, amusement and fun. It is an unprecedented undertaking - to find a way for governments, industry players and NGOs to work internationally to allow this new medium the room to grow, while finding the right touch of government oversight, industry self-regulation and parental involvement. Watch this space...

Blogs, or “weblogs” (“web” + “log”) are journals posted on the Internet. These online diaries are often hosted free of charge by companies who get money by placing click-through ads on the blog pages. What distinguishes the blog from any other web page is the format. The entries are posted in reverse chronological order, and each entry contains an area for comments from the readers. This enables topics to be discussed among the readers in an ongoing dialogue.

Blogs can be written by anyone, about anything: the school lunch, how to kill a spider, etc. The over four million bloggers leave no conversational stone unturned. Typically, a blog contains links to other blogs

The appeal of blogging to teens is natural. Blogging has become a social event. A way to reach out and connect and share ideas of a personal nature in an impersonal forum. This private diary broadcast to millions of strangers is a way of getting attention while hiding behind a computer. It’s not surprising that blogging has so quickly become identified as a “teen” pastime.

The promise of teen blogging is that it nurtures important social skills, fills a need for self-expression, and builds writing ability. And most of the time it does just that. Careless blogging, on the other hand, can be dangerous in many ways.

Mantas: “I have spend approximately 26000 hours in chats – I really know everything”.

Tomas: “The price you win, after a pop-up appears showing that you are the lucky 10000th visitor and all you need to do is give an e-mail, is a great bunch of nice spam!”

Einis: “Even 3 month babies have blogs nowadays. I didn’t know how to write at that time”.

Tomas: "What is "spam"? It is offers, suggestions, offers, suggestions, offers....to increase potency, to buy cheap medicine, to invest in stocks..."

More about the event: More about the event: http://blog.eun.org/insafe/2006/02/lithuania_schoolchildren_teach_1.html#more

The key findings of the research, composed of focus groups (children and youth aged 11 to 17) and a national student survey (more than 5,200 children and youth from Grades 4 to 11) revealed that an astonishing 94 percent of young people access the Internet from home. Kids as early as Grade 4 rely on the Internet to explore social roles, stay connected with friends and develop their social networks. New friends made online are typically a friend of a family member or a friend of a friend in the real world.

The social nature of the Internet is also evidenced in the ways in which kids will assume online identities to try out new social roles. Almost 60 percent of kids pretend to be someone else online at some point, mostly to see what it would be like to be older, or a different gender or to flirt with other people. The Net gives them the freedom to try on different personalities and to explore their sexuality away from the supervision of parents or teachers.

Individuation and separation from parents as well as exploration of sexual intimacy are normal developmental tasks of adolescence. From the kids’ point of view, the Net allows them to do so in a safe environment, with relatively few consequences. But the safety of these interactions is built upon the assumption that kids remain anonymous. Providing guidance to children to understand and recognize potential risks - like privacy invasions, cyber bullying, and misinformation - is essential part of ensuring a positive experience for young users. MNet will use these findings in the development of education programs aimed at educators, students and the general public.

A continuación ofrecemos un extracto de las conclusiones de los talleres participativos “Navegar seguro” que organizan el Consejo Nacional de Niñez, Adolescencia y Familia y que se llevan a cabo en distintas ciudades del país. Durante el taller los chicos reflexionan e identifican los riesgos en el uso de las nuevas tecnologías. Pero lo más importante: los chicos son los protagonistas y responsables de elaborar una serie de tips para mejorar la experiencia de sus pares en la red y se animan también a hacer recomendaciones a los padres.

We have a duty to educate not only children about the internet but also their parents and carers. Research has shown us that children can easily be lured into a false sense of security and too many feel that it can never happen to them…

In the UK we need to make better use of the resources and expertise that we have. Someone needs to take responsibility to ensure that everyone in every school understands the dangers and how to protect children from them. Internet Literacy should be a part of the curriculum.

In the past, every child was made aware of “stranger danger” and what to do, indeed, parents expected their children to learn about this in school. Internet Safety must be the stranger danger of the 21st century and we must realise this quickly. We need to have a cohesive strategy that everyone can understand, different departments with their own initiatives don’t work and too many people are not getting the message. Government understand the issues and now need to join up their thinking to deliver this important message to everyone.

• Child abuse images (also known as ‘child pornography’)
  
• Criminally obscene content which means images featuring acts of ‘extreme’ sexual activity
  
• Content (words and images) which may incite racial hatred by reference to skin colour, race, nationality, or ethnic origin

Don’t ignore it, report it!

If you genuinely stumble across such images or are inadvertently exposed to them you must report them to the IWF or the police.

You must not deliberately seek out potentially illegal child abuse images because purposely viewing them is a serious criminal offence.

Why should I report these images?
Reports from the public enable us to work with our partners at home and abroad to combat this content and where possible have it removed and those responsible for publishing the images investigated. This makes the internet a safer place for everyone.

Child abuse images reflect the real abuse of a child and reports to the hotline might help the authorities to trace and rescue a young victim from further abuse.

How do I report?
Go to the IWF website www.iwf.org.uk and complete the step-by-step form.
The form is easy to navigate and reports can be submitted anonymously.

What about other suspicious or criminal activity online?
The IWF is unable to take reports or help with any other queries that fall outside of the 3 categories listed above.

For more information, please see our website