With the exponential increase in apps and online services, many parents are faced with difficult questions regarding the safety and well-being of their children. The main concern is: How do we ensure that young people can navigate in a safe and appropriate online environment? Meta has just published its idea on the matter, with proposals that aim to simplify the lives of parents, offering them tools and resources to better manage their children’s interaction with the digital world.
A crucial aspect of this discussion is the growing difficulty in monitoring the online activities of teenagers, second Zuckerberg’s company. According to recent studies, young people use an average of at least 40 different apps every week, a number that continues to grow. This scenario makes it almost impossible for parents to keep track of the apps their children use and the interactions that take place on these platforms. This is where the need for one comes into play collaboration between technology companies and legislators to develop effective and simple solutions that support parents in their mission to protect their children.
Meta’s proposals for greater online security
Meta’s services are already implementing measures to ensure age-appropriate online experiences. An example is represented by accounts for teenagers launched on Instagramwhich offer built-in protections and require parental consent to change certain settings. These measures limit who can contact younger users, the content they can see and aim to filter offensive comments. However, despite these initiatives, policies vary greatly from app to app and country to country, creating a fragmented regulatory patchwork that fails to provide uniform protection.
There is a clear need for a new regulation at the European Union level, according to the company, which establishes clear and consistent standards for protecting teenagers online. This regulation should be based on fundamental principles such as age verification and parental approval at the operating system or app store level. When a teenager wants to download an app, the operating system should automatically notify parents, allowing them to decide whether or not to approve the download, similar to what happens with in-app purchases.
A systemic approach could greatly simplify the parental approval process, avoiding the need to share sensitive information with multiple apps. Furthermore, it would be essential establish common standards regarding age-appropriate contentso that parents can have confidence in the platforms used by their children. The issue of child protection has been at the center of political debate in Europe for over a decade: several laws and directives have been introduced, such as the Digital Services Act and the General Data Protection Regulation. However, none of these initiatives have provided a comprehensive solution to verifying age and creating safe and appropriate online experiences for young people.
A survey conducted by Morning Consult, cited by Meta, revealed that Almost 75% of European parents support the introduction of laws requiring parental approval for teenagers under 16 when downloading apps.
The survey results also show a strong support among Italian parents (82%)and other countries of the Old Continent. On the positive side, there is growing awareness among families of the risks associated with young people’s indiscriminate use of digital technologies, with technology continuing to evolve alongside online safety challenges. It is essential that parents are equipped with the tools needed to navigate this complex landscape, according to the company, and collaboration between the private and public sectors will be key to finding practical and effective solutions that ease the burden of parental responsibility in a digital context more and more intricate.
Source: www.hwupgrade.it
