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Challenges and risks related to online content

Adapted from Youth Protection Roundtable Tool Kit – Stiftung Digitale Chancen 2009

User of this Media and Information Literacy Curriculum, when contemplating how stakeholders should seek to tackle the list of online challenges and risks below, should recollect the non- exhaustive list of international norms concerning human rights as may be appropriate. User should research and consider other international norms framework as appropriate.

• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (),
• Article 19 of the ,
• United Nations Resolution A/HRC/32/L.20 on “”,
• United Nations Resolution A/RES/64/211 on “"
• United Nations A/74/486 “” in the context of tackling hate speech offline and online
• United Nations A/HRC/39/29 “Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights” on “”
• United Nations Development Group

Age-inappropriate content: The Internet provides a wealth of content for all groups of users. Mainstream interests are served as well as special interest groups. Nevertheless, not all content should be accessible by children and young people. So, it has to be carefully decided which content is appropriate to which age group. Special attention should be given to content that is not illegal in general but might harm younger users. Age-inappropriate content like pornography might especially harm younger children when exposed to it unintentionally. The risk of viewing age-inappropriate content can result from the user’s own conduct when searching for it deliberately, as well as stumbling across it without intending to, or finding it because recommended to them by an attention-seeking algorithm and based on data analysis of the potential targeted persons.

Content that is not appropriate for all age groups might be provided for commercial reasons but can also be generated by users themselves. Access to the former might be restricted to closed user groups only, while user-generated content is mostly publicly available and therefore needs special attention. Since today many children and young people have a mobile phones with multimedia functionalities and access to the Internet at their fingertips, it must be considered that they might access age-inappropriate content when on their own and without an adult for guidance at their side. Mobile devices also enable children to produce their own digital content in any life situation, thus contributing to the increasing volume of user-generated content.

lllegal content (such as child abuse content): The type of content classified as illegal depends foremost on national laws, although some type of content is outlawed in most countries. Nevertheless, illegal content is available and can be accessed unintentionally or deliberately by children and young people. Attention should also be paid to children and young people as potential victims of illegal content, e.g. by taking and publishing pictures or videos of child sexual abuse.

Lack of verification of content: Given that content available through the Internet is often not verified by an independent source, it is important that young people learn to read content with a critical eye and not take everything that is said at face value. User-generated content, characteristic of the Web 2.0 environment, can often be partial, biased or inaccurate. Younger users need to be aware of the dangers of simply believing anything they read online.

lncitement of harm: There are many sites on the web inciting users to harm themselves (e.g. websites promoting suicide or anorexia). With Web 2.0 and the increasing possibilities to publish users’ own content, the risk of being exposed to content inciting harm is growing. In particular children and young people are in many cases not able to make a realistic assessment of the risks arising from following the instructions given in such websites. Young people and adults alike should know when algorithms recommended ever-increasing harmful content simply to keep them engaged and yielding data as well as absorbing advertising and other kinds of paid content (e.g. by secretly sponsored infuencers).

lnfringement of human rights/defamation: In the anonymity of the web, hatred against certain population groups or individuals can easily be widespread. In addition, one can presume that people often act differently online when they do not have to face their counterparts or victims directly and therefore are not immediately confronted with the consequences of their conduct. Thus, the risk of infringement of human rights and being a victim of defamation is much more possible online than in reality. Such content can be harmful to children and young people whose opinions might be infuenced by misleading information.

lnappropriate advertisement and marketing to children: Inappropriate advertisement means the risks of receiving or being exposed to advertising for products and/or services that are inappropriate to children. The more users give away private information (i.e. name, age or gender), the more likely they are to receive advertisements or be asked to participate in lotteries. Since children are in many cases unaware of the consequences of typing their names into forms and boxes on the web, they are at risk. Considering the high penetration rate of mobile phones among children and young people, attention should also be paid to this additional channel for the dissemination of advertisements. Younger children are most vulnerable to manipulation by any advertising and need particular preparation about this content targeting them.

Privacy: Once published on the web, content can spread rapidly around the world and remain in existence indefinitely. Users, and in particular children and young people, are often unaware of the short- and long-term consequences of publishing texts and pictures they may not want to make available publicly later. Data stored on a server or a platform can be easily accessed by others and people may not be aware of how unprotected their personal data can be. It is important when using the Internet that people fully understand the environment they are working in. See more on Privacy in Module 8. Even data collected without being entered explicitly can be used adversely by the data harvesters themselves or those who hack their systems.

Copyright infringement: Copyright infringement is a risk mostly related to the conduct of users themselves. Irrespective of whether a copyright has been infringed deliberately or accidentally, the infringement is seen as fraud by the holder and puts the violator at risk of penalty. At the same time, young people and adults alike should know about ‘fair use’ Creative Commons possibilities for reusing content or circulating their own, as well as the ownership claims to personal data by digital communication companies and provide social media platforms as their business proposition.

Risks related to online contact

Adapted from Youth Protection Roundtable Tool Kit – Stiftung Digitale Chancen 2009

Harmful advice: Forums, blogs and other contact-related areas of the Internet provide a platform for the exchange of information and advice between users. This can be valuable assistance, but can also facilitate contact with inappropriate or even more harmful advisors, including, for example, when corporate algorithms recommend joining groups dedicated to anti-social causes like idealized body types and facial features. The risk of receiving harmful advice, in particular for children and young people, is greater in social community platforms or other Web 2.0 applications than on regular websites.

ldentity theft: This refers to getting hold of, and making use of, other people’s electronic identity (e.g. username and password) with the intent to commit commercial or other fraud and to benefit from it is called identity theft. Identity theft is a growing risk as the number of virtual identities is increasing with the number of people online and particularly those using personalized services. It can result from poor password protection, or poor security by companies as regards hackers.

Money theft/phishing: Phishing refers to the process of harvesting bank details, in particular personal identification numbers (PINs) and transaction authentication numbers (TANs), with the intent to ransack other people’s bank accounts. Young people may not recognize a fake website, and give away their bank details.

Commercial fraud: Commercial fraud happens when sellers pretend to sell goods or services which, after payment, either do not show the promised attributes or are not delivered at all. It can also result from identity theft and phishing. Another source of commercial fraud can be the sale of digital services (e.g. a ring tone) at an unreasonable and unfair price, often bound to a permanent subscription to the service that was not intended by the buyer. In the majority of cases, users (and in particular young people and children) are unaware of the consequences of such contracts concluded online.

Grooming: Grooming refers to paedophiles using the Internet as a means to contact children and young people while concealing their adult identity. They often build their strategy on children’s longing for friendship and familiarity. All areas of the Internet that provide platforms for personal contact and exchange are likely to provide a basis for grooming attacks. As mentioned before, the mobile phone (as an additional device to contact others and to access social networks) should be taken into strong consideration here, especially as children look at their mobile phone as a particular part of their private life and are often on their own when using it. Thus, with the increase of mobile communication technologies and social networks, the risk of falling prey to a grooming attack and then accepting a dangerous invitation has become much greater.

Bullying: Various types of bullying can be simplified by the Internet due to the anonymity provided by the medium. Children and young people, in particular, risk being both victims of bullying and offenders. Hence bullying is related to one's own conduct as well as to the conduct of others. Even though publishing content like defamatory pictures can be part of bullying, the phenomenon is chiefly related to online contact. Since many children and young people have a mobile phone equipped with a digital camera, bullying is becoming easier.

Disclosing private information: When setting up a profile on a social community platform, users are invited to disclose private information to present themselves to the community. Also, in chat rooms and forums users may disclose private data to others, such as their address or telephone number. Young people in particular, are unable to foresee the consequences of publishing their private data. They are often unaware that a chat room is not a private but a public area.

Profiling: With the increasing number of profiles a person can publish on different platforms, there is a greater risk that personal data published on one platform will be merged with data published on other platforms, sold to data brokers or given away elsewhere (e.g. in polling or raffles). Thus, profiles are created that make it possible to directly address the person with potentially unwanted content, services and advertisements.

Do users know what ‘accept cookies’ really means when they visit a website or service? Profiling can be carried out from the website when personal data are displayed publicly, but a more dangerous practice is when profiles of users (or their partial profiles) are harvested from the database behind the website and sold by the platform provider to third parties. Some online platforms have arrangements with other online services to get access to users’ data, even when the users do not use their platform (or its subsidiaries).

• Educator should guide learners to research and consider other international norms framework as listed below. Pay close attention to the key recommendations and action points in each of these documents. Is your country a signatory to the covenant mentioned below and other related conventions? Do the United Nations resolution, reports and guides relevant to your country? Are the recommendations and actions points being implemented in your country? Research these and ask why, why not or with what effect? Who are the key stakeholders on these issues in your country? Do they exist? How is civil society engaged in these processes? Are they consulted? Are they involved in the implementation, monitoring and decision-making? Are youth, women and various marginalize groups involved in the process? Why not? What can be done?
  • International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (),
  • Article 19 of the
  • United Nations Resolution A/HRC/32/L.20 on “”
  • United Nations Resolution A/RES/64/211 on “"
  • United Nations A/74/486 “” in the context of tackling hate speech offline and online
  • United Nations A/HRC/39/29 “Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights” on “”
  • United Nations Development Group
• It is important to understand what is meant by harmful online content. International human rights law specifies a number of acceptable restrictions upon freedom of expression - particularly when freedom of speech conficlts with other rights. Examples of matters that might be restricted include incitement to violence or racial hatred, child and sex images. In each case, international law stipulates that restrictions should be finely detailed and supervised by the courts. However, treading on sensitivities which are not per se related to human rights, should not be regarded as harm as such. If this were the case, expressions against a musical style could be taken as harming its fans, etc. Triggering shock and offence is not, on its own, enough to constitute harm, in terms of international standards. Against this background, organize a learning space debate about these international standards and highlight examples of different types of content including those that might fall in a grey area.
• It is important to avoid assuming that potential harm is actual harm. The effects of content on society are much more complex than the commonly-held stimulus-response model suggests. First, as the theorist Stuart Hall showed, different people respond differently - accepting, rejecting or negotiating meanings, and processing at cognitive, affective and practical levels in different ways. Second, there is a wide a range of possible impacts such as legitimation and reinforcement, as well as framing and agenda-setting, which are all much more subtle than cases of content that triggers fear, arousal, hope or anger. In this context, nuance is needed in order to understand and react based on more than the apparent intrinsic harm that a given text may lead to. MIL is one way to identify when potential harm might result in real harm. For example, MIL can also provide insights as to the conditions when speech can actually have dangerous impact and needs to be addressed urgently, compared to other contexts. Such skills draw from the Rabat Plan on countering hate speech, which draw attention to looking at key features such as the status and influence of the speaker, the spread of the speech, the volatility of the context, etc. MIL can also assist with understanding the role of digital communications companies in the amplification and repetition of content, including "dog-whistles" which are seemingly legitimate but which can constitute content that is actually a coded call for harmful action.
  • Ask educators to share any experience that they or a friend has had with any one of the challenges outlined above regarding potentially or really harmful content. How did they deal with it? What was the final outcome? What lessons did they learn?
• Consider, for example, identity theft, monetary theft/phishing, infringement of human rights or any other abuse on the Internet. Through research, or using resources provided in this Media and Information Literacy Curriculum, identify and list steps to be taken and exact characteristics that educators and learners should look for to recognize fraudulent online requests for information, fraudulent websites, and content that breaches human rights. Resources used for this activity should be practical and represent real cases as far as possible. Educators could carry out this activity for all the risks listed above.
• In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, do an online search of the wealth of medical (or other category) information available on the Internet. Can medical websites help you diagnose any health problems you are having? Is it safe to take actions concerning your health based on advice from the web? List and discuss the main ways to determine the authenticity and authority of a medical website.
• If you are part of a social network, carry out a search for your name using DuckDuckGo, Google, Yandex, Baidu, or other search engines. How much personal information about you is available in the public domain? Can you still find information about you that you had deleted from your social network? Which of the risks mentioned above is this related to?
• Take an extract from Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, Article 2, ‘Sharing Your Content and Information’ (or from any other social network or even software that comes with your computer). In small groups, analyse whether the extract you selected may have an effect on someone's privacy and possibly security. How can users control the content posted about them online? Analyse and discuss who holds the copyright for certain types of content (photos, videos, etc.) posted on social networks or on the web. See more about privacy in Module 8.
• Discuss the asymmetry between what users can recall about themselves, their history and geography, and what Internet companies know about them.
• Examine the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It sets out the basic human rights that children everywhere have: the right to survival; to develop to the fullest; to protection from harmful infuences, abuse and exploitation; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life. Are there Convention articles that require the development of appropriate guidelines for protecting children from information and material that could harm their well-being?
• The International Telecommunication Union’s Technology Watch Report 10 has argued that the need to address the concerns of privacy and security is the No. 1 priority to improve life in the digital world and on the Internet (ITU 2009). The absence of robust security inevitably presents a risk to all systems and processes that rely on electronic communication (ITU 2006). Weak or absent security leads to growing occurrences of cybercrimes. Some have argued that ‘access to communication is useless if peace and safety online cannot be guaranteed…’, and proposed that we should see the digital world as a 'gated community, where users may have to sacrifice certain freedoms and anonymity in return for better security…’ (ITU News)
• However, many activists for freedom on the Internet are concerned about government interference and control. There is growing concern that the Internet is becoming a closed controlled space rather than an open public-interest space and is increasingly dominated by governments and corporations. It may be that for some governments and businesses, security is the dominant concern, while this is not the case for many citizens. The right to privacy, which is supported by anonymity and encryption, is seen as important to avoid persecution for certain views, to ameliorate the tracking of surveillance business models, and to not open back doors to cybercriminals.
  • Discuss the statements in quotes above. Do you think governments need to take steps to make the virtual world more secure? Why or why not?
  • Do you agree that privacy will have to be sacrificed to some extent in some situations? What are some of the implications? What would happen if the Internet were controlled by any one country or region of the world?
• Carry out a search on several types of tools being used for Internet security – encryption; password protection; monitoring the disclosure of security breaches by governments and companies that are hacked. Discuss their benefits and disadvantages.
• Select any social network website or software that you use. Experiment with the privacy settings. Search in the ‘terms of use’ for the terms ‘privacy and security’. Do you think that the privacy safeguards are sufficient to help you avoid some of the risks described in this section (see boxes on risks related to Internet content and contact)? What are some of the repercussions when you put the privacy settings to the maximum level? See more about privacy in Module 8 and social media in Modules 7 and 11.