Charity warns of rising levels of unrestricted online access for children

One third of the children surveyed said they have little to no restrictions on their behaviour online. Picture: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Tighter controls and stricter laws are required to compel social media companies and games makers to remove harmful content when it relates to children, an internet safety charity has said.

The call from CyberSafeKids comes as its new annual report highlights the rising levels, and in many cases, the unrestricted level of access many children under 12 have to smart devices, online access, social media, and messaging apps, despite age restrictions.

It follows a major survey of 4,500 children, which found that a staggering 95% of eight to 12-year-olds owned their own smart device — up of 2% on last year’s figure — and 87% had their own social media and/or instant messaging account, though most of these popular apps impose higher age restrictions.

YouTube was the most popular app (78%), followed by TikTok (47%), Snapchat (41%), and WhatsApp (40%), but children said if they were posting videos of themselves online, they were most likely to do so on TikTok (74%), or Snapchat (41%).

'No rules' online

A third said they face little if any restrictions on their online access, with 15% of children saying there are ‘no rules’ in place at home for them going online.

Almost a third of teenage boys are playing over-18s online games, potentially exposing them to violent imagery, and harmful content.

Many admitted that they had either been contacted by a stranger in an online game, or were friends or had followers that they don’t know offline.

Alex Cooney, the CEO of the internet safety charity, said this year’s data shows young children are being exposed to vast amounts of inappropriate content that can be violent, disturbing, and sometimes of a sexual nature.

“Makers of video games and owners of the big social media platforms need to be doing much more with the vast profits they’re making, to monitor and remove harmful content on their services, especially when it relates to a child,” she said.

We are contacted by members of the public with stories relating to children having negative experiences online — bullying, grooming, exposure to inappropriate content.

“We urge the Government to put in place legislation that will meaningfully hold the online service providers to account when things go wrong for a child online, and we are calling on it to invest more resources to support parents and educators.” 

Ms Cooney highlighted one disturbing incident recently reported to the charity, which involved sexually explicit and aggressive language on a Snapchat group set up by some sixth-class children from different schools who were starting at the same secondary school.

One mother whose child was involved said reading the explicit threats of physical assault and rape of her son in the most offensive, stomach-turning language, was horrendous.

“I wasn’t vigilant enough and have taken steps to address that, but the duty of care cannot lie with the children and parents alone,” she said.

The charity has now called for a national campaign to raise awareness amongst parents and teachers, and changes to the proposed Online Safety and Media Regulation bill, such as the inclusion of an individual complaints mechanism to give minors greater powers over content that has caused them harm, and a stronger incentive to social media and gaming platforms to remove this content quickly and efficiently.

Meanwhile, Turn2Me, a national mental health charity, has launched two support groups, on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 6pm, for teenagers starting or going back to secondary school, and for young people going to college for the first time.