Day 0 Event #10 First Aid Online: Making the Difference for Children

Summary

This discussion focused on the work of Safer Internet Centers in Europe, particularly their efforts to protect children online and provide support through helplines. The session featured representatives from Belgium and Poland, as well as a youth ambassador, who shared insights into current online safety challenges and initiatives.

Key issues highlighted included the rise of non-consensual sharing of intimate images, sextortion, and cyberbullying. The speakers emphasized the importance of avoiding victim-blaming and instead focusing on empowering children with digital skills and resilience. They noted concerning trends such as the increasing use of AI in creating deepfakes for exploitation and the prevalence of harmful online behaviors among young teens.

The helplines operated by Safer Internet Centers were described as crucial resources, offering professional support to children, parents, and educators dealing with online risks. Statistics showed that teenagers are the primary users of these services, with cyberbullying being a top concern. The speakers stressed the need for ongoing education and awareness campaigns to encourage more young people to seek help when needed.

The discussion also touched on the challenges of parental oversharing online and the importance of involving youth in developing online safety strategies. The youth ambassador highlighted the value of helplines in providing immediate relief and guidance to young people facing online issues.

Overall, the session underscored the complex and evolving nature of online risks for children and the critical role of Safer Internet Centers in addressing these challenges through education, support, and collaboration with policymakers and industry.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Overview of Safer Internet Centers in Europe and their role in supporting online safety for children and youth

– Trends in online risks for young people, particularly non-consensual sharing of intimate images, sextortion, and cyberbullying

– Importance of empowering youth and involving them in online safety efforts, rather than just focusing on protection

– Challenges in getting youth to report online issues and seek help from adults/helplines

– Need for more data and research on emerging online risks like AI-generated harmful content

Overall purpose:

The goal of the discussion was to raise awareness about Safer Internet Centers and helplines in Europe, highlight current online safety trends and challenges for youth, and emphasize the importance of youth empowerment and participation in online safety efforts.

Tone:

The tone was primarily informative and concerned, with speakers presenting statistics and examples to illustrate the seriousness of online risks for youth. There was also an emphasis on hope and empowerment, particularly when discussing youth involvement and potential solutions. The tone became more urgent when discussing emerging AI-related risks near the end.

Speakers

– SABRINA VORBAU: Moderator of the session, representative of the Better Internet for Kids initiative

– NIELS VAN PAEMEL: Policy advisor for Childfocus, the Belgian foundation for missing and sexually exploited children

– ANNA RYWCZYNSKA: Representative of NASK, the National Research Institute in Poland

– JOAO PEDRO: Better Internet for Kids Youth Ambassador

Additional speakers:

– Sadat Raman: Representative from Bangladesh working on internet safety initiatives for teenagers

Expanded Summary of Safer Internet Centers Discussion

Introduction

This discussion focused on the work of Safer Internet Centers in Europe, particularly their efforts to protect children online and provide support through helplines. The session featured representatives from Belgium and Poland, as well as a youth ambassador, who shared insights into current online safety challenges and initiatives. The discussion highlighted the complex and evolving nature of online risks for children and the critical role of Safer Internet Centers in addressing these challenges through education, support, and collaboration with policymakers and industry.

Structure and Role of Safer Internet Centers

Safer Internet Centers play a crucial role in supporting online safety for children and youth across Europe. As explained by Sabrina Vorbau, the moderator from the Better Internet for Kids initiative, these centres provide awareness, helplines, hotlines, and youth panels. The specific focus of each centre may vary by country:

– In Belgium, Niels van Paemel noted that their Safer Internet Center is operated through a partnership between Childfocus and another organization.

– Anna Rywczynska described how the Polish Safer Internet Center involves collaboration between NASK (a research institute focused on cybersecurity) and NGOs, including the Empowering Children Foundation.

The Better Internet for Kids Plus strategy, mentioned during the discussion, is built on three pillars: youth protection, participation, and empowerment.

Current Online Safety Trends and Issues

The speakers highlighted several concerning trends in online risks for young people:

1. Non-consensual sharing of intimate images: Niels van Paemel identified this as a growing problem across Europe and worldwide.

2. Sextortion: Van Paemel reported a 400% increase in sextortion cases over the past five years.

3. Cyberbullying: Anna Rywczynska noted this as a major issue in Poland, citing research on its prevalence.

4. AI and deepfakes: Van Paemel raised concerns about AI-generated content, including deepfakes. He presented statistics showing that 42% of young people know what deepfakes are, 23% have seen at least one, and 13.8% have received one or more. Alarmingly, 99% of the victims are girls. The potential for live deepfake technology to be used in grooming was also discussed.

5. “Troll parenting”: Rywczynska highlighted the issue of adults setting negative examples online, including sharing embarrassing content about their children (“sharenting”).

Approaches to Prevention and Support

The speakers agreed on the importance of empowering children and involving them in online safety efforts:

1. Avoiding victim-blaming: Van Paemel stressed addressing gender stereotypes in prevention efforts.

2. Empowerment: Rywczynska emphasised building self-esteem and teaching assertiveness.

3. Research: Van Paemel called for more studies on emerging online risks.

4. Awareness and accessibility: Joao Pedro, a Better Internet for Kids Youth Ambassador, highlighted the need to expand awareness of helpline services.

5. “MenAble” project: Van Paemel mentioned this initiative aimed at working with boys on respectful online behavior.

6. “Cyberspots”: Rywczynska described this Polish initiative involving school teams focused on digital issues.

7. Digital Youth Forum: An annual event organized in Poland to engage youth in online safety discussions.

Helplines and Support Services

Helplines are a key component of Safer Internet Centers, offering crucial support for young people facing online issues. Challenges include:

1. Low reporting rates: In Belgium, only 15% of victims reach out for help.

2. Balancing confidentiality and safeguarding: Joao Pedro noted the importance of maintaining anonymity while fulfilling reporting obligations.

3. Expanding reach: Speakers emphasized the need to reassure children that they are not alone and provide tools to seek assistance and request content takedowns.

International Collaboration

The discussion underscored the global nature of cybersafety issues and the need for worldwide cooperation:

1. Safer Internet Day: Celebrated on the second Tuesday in February as a global awareness initiative.

2. Cross-border challenges: Online safety issues transcend national boundaries and require international cooperation.

3. Interest from other countries: An audience member from Bangladesh shared information about their helpline and Amber Alert initiative, indicating potential for broader international partnerships.

Conclusion

The discussion highlighted the critical role of Safer Internet Centers in addressing the complex and evolving landscape of online risks for children and youth. While speakers agreed on the importance of these centres and the need for youth empowerment, they also identified several challenges and areas for further work. These include addressing the rise of AI-generated threats, improving reporting rates for online abuse, and balancing confidentiality with safeguarding responsibilities in helpline services. The session underscored the need for continued research, international collaboration, and adaptation of strategies to meet emerging online safety challenges.

For more information, visit betterinternetforkids.europa.eu.

SABRINA VORBAU: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you very much for joining our session. My name is Sabrina Forba, I will moderate the session. This session is organized by the Better Internet for Kids initiative and the InSafe network of Safer Internet Centers. Today’s session, we will tell you a little bit more about what is a Safer Internet Center and specifically how Safer Internet Centers support citizens at national level. We will hear two country examples today from Belgium and Poland, and we also have one of our youth ambassadors online with us, Joao from Portugal, who will also provide you with the youth perspective to understand how important the subject matter is. Very briefly. Can we change to the next slide, please? Okay. Very briefly, as I said, this workshop is organized by the Better Internet for Kids initiative. Better Internet for Kids is a European Commission funded initiative to create a safer and a better Internet for children and young people, not only in Europe, but also beyond. The Better Internet for Kids initiative comes with the Better Internet for Kids portal, a portal where users can find more information, but also resources in multiple languages on better and safer Internet subjects. Today, as part of this workshop, we will also look at current trends and issues. how we can support children and young people but also adults such as educators, social workers, to support young people in this matter. However, children and young people are at the heart of what we do. As I said, we also have one of our youth ambassadors from Portugal with us today. It is very vital for us with everything we do, with every resource we are co-creating, with every policies we are shaping to have the voice of children and young people. A safer internet center, for those of you who are not familiar with it, is structured based on four strengths. A national awareness center, a helpline, a hotline and also a youth panel. In today’s session we will specifically focus on the importance and the objective of helplines really acting as a first aid service in countries supporting users to supporting citizens, mainly children and young people, what to do when they occur troubles online. While we will hear, as I said before, we will hear and dive deeper a little bit into country studies specifically from Belgium and Poland and also Portugal. We are collecting at European level statistics because those helplines are existing in each of the EU member states plus Norway and Iceland. These statistics I’m presenting here are from the quarter of April and June this year. We are collecting these statistics on a quarterly basis because this helps us to assess what issues citizens are facing at national level and how we can combat these issues, how can we help users to be more aware but also feel secure and protected. You can see here on the slides some statistics, also first of all who is contacting those helplines and we see that a vast majority of people that contact the helplines are actually teenagers, young adults that seek help and later on you will see the current most trending topics and issues. There are various ways how users can contact a helpline. Traditionally this was done by phone but of course by today helplines are offering various different forms of contacts, also ensuring anonymity of course, especially if we’re talking about reporting sensitive issues such as for example abuse online or other issues. Many of our helplines offer for example online forms or chat services because definitely it takes also a village for someone to pick up the phone to report something, so also for those who are more introverted to give really opportunity to report their matter and seek help. You can also see here that helplines are also available to adults specifically during the COVID-19 pandemic. We saw a lot of educators and a lot of parents contacting the helplines seeking for advice, seeking for advice on technical matters but also seeking for advice on social matters as well. A final slide from my side just to outline the current trends and issues here on the right side and as I said we will dive deeper in two of the issues, my colleagues will dive deeper in two of the issues in a minute. Cyberbullying, we see that this has been really one of the top trends not only in this quarter but for many many years. It seems specifically for children and young people this is the main issue they are countering online and we see a lot of adults puzzled on how to help them because we know it’s not only cyberbullying it’s also offline bullying so it’s really really an important subject matters. But we also see an increase for example in subjects like sexting or sextortion which is also one of the issues we will comment closer on. And when looking at these trends and issues where do these trends and issues occur? It’s mainly online where these issues occur and for the vast majority it’s on social media platforms. So I think all that young people spend an awful lot of time on these social media platforms not only in one multiple social media platforms so it’s really really important that we step in that we also work together with social media platforms but also policymakers. So we from the Better Internet for Kids initiative we tried to bridge this conversation between policymakers but also industry representatives and really provide first aid for the end-user. Now I will hand over the floor to my colleagues as I said as part of this workshop now we will dive deeper into two country examples because we have colleagues here from the Belgium and the Polish helpline so I hand over to Niels now for some trends and also operational matters of the Belgium helpline.

NIELS VAN PAEMEL: Thank you Sabrina. Okay hi everybody so my name is Niels, Niels van Pamel and I work as a policy advisor for Childfocus which is the Belgian foundation for missing and sexually exploited children. I will specify, because I only have a few minutes, so I will talk about a part of our job, right? The mission of ChildFocus is easy. We are the foundation for missing, as I said, but also sexual exploitation of minors. And that happens, as we all know, both in the online as in the offline world. But of course, over the last two decades, we shifted a bit from children being more vulnerable offline towards more and more online. We are the Belgian Safer Internet Center, as Sabine explained, so we are the Belgian helpline that kids can call on the number 116000 number 24x7x3. And we work with FHIRs and case managers. FHIRs are first responders, and then case managers are the ones who really will go in-depth with the child that needs help, or with caretakers, professionals, even police. It can be people who work in education, who need advice around one of the topics that we work around. So that’s the things that we do. What do we want to do? We want to create a better internet for kids in Belgium, of course. We want to support and accompany professionals working with children in development of their digital and media skills. We want to strengthen media literacy and media education for children in Belgium. And we want to provide support for parents, professionals, and children through our 116000 helpline. And we report and combat child sexual abuse material. So what I want to focus on today is going to be the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, or NCII. And later we will go to sextortion. You cannot really see well the numbers on there, but it starts in 2018 and we go to 2023. So these are all the cases that we open at Childfocus, from children, mostly children who contact us because they have sex. Their image has been spread in the context of a school or a youth club or whatever, but without consent, the images have been spread towards third parties, right? And then in 2020, we saw a very big rise of this case, and we thought, okay, maybe it’s because of it’s COVID, all children are inside of their houses, and maybe that’s why they will go to more risky behavior and it might go more wrong online because of it. So we thought, after the quarantine, it’s going to go down again. But look what we’re seeing here, we are almost doubling our numbers, and with extortion, you will see that it’s even more. So we are seeing that it’s actually going, oh my God, I have the wrong, yes. So we’re seeing that it’s really on the rise, right? And not only in Belgium, it’s a European phenomenon, and also worldwide. What do I want to tell you about this, from working with all these children, that one of the biggest problems that we do, also as professionals, people have the tendency to go towards victim blaming, telling a child, you shouldn’t have taken that photo in the first place. But if you do that, children will even have a more hard time to reach out to you. And what do we want? We want children to reach out when they’re into trouble. Research shows that in Belgium, only 15% of victims reach out, and we want to heighten that number. And how do we do that? By making children reassured that they are not alone, that they have been the victim of something, and then we can give them the tools to not only reach out, but also find help and also go to the takedown of certain images. So consent, that’s the new word that we want to introduce here. It’s all about consent. If young people exchange within the context of a very healthy sexual relationship, if they want to exchange photos, as such, that is not the problem. The problem is that somebody takes the confidence of somebody, receives a very personal gift, and decides to spread it to a much larger community. And that’s also how we should look at it. We should not blame the victim, we should blame the person who asked for the photos and then spread them further on. So it’s about a break of confidence and sexual intimidation. Now another thing, secondary victimization, that’s actually what I said, we should try not to victim blame children who are reaching out to us. And that can come from many sides, parents, peers, teachers, but also police. The children reaching out to police when things go wrong is less than 10%. And also there, it’s also a sector that we really want to work with, and that we do through many trainings. And then, last but not least, gender stereotypical behavior also plays a big role in here. As we see, we are opening more and more cases of a child that calls us, yes, in my school there is this telegram group, sluts of school x. And then, a lot of boys will collect photos of mostly girls, but it’s not always the case. Mostly boys collect photos of mostly girls, post it on platforms like telegram, and there we see how this whole culture of exposing and doxing is finding its way, and where girls are being victimized with their own material. If we want to change this, we should really start working more and more with boys, because we need to show them that it’s not okay to do this. It’s not okay to be disrespectful online. It’s not okay to slut shame a girl. So things like this is really something we need to work more and more about. If you come find us at the InSafe booth, you will see that we started a project called MenAble, where we try to enable boys by giving them tools to reach out, to talk in a more positive, respectful way about sexuality online, and where we really want to work with them to give them the tools. So come find us at the booths later. I need to rush a bit, I’m sorry. We did a study last December about deep nuding. Has anybody here in this room heard of what deep nudes are? If yes, put your hand up, please. Two people, three people, four people, five. So for the people online, that’s a minority. There’s many more people here, there’s like 100 people. So deep nudes are actually deep fakes. I suppose you know deep fakes, but with a sexual connotation, right? So people making fake images of somebody naked, or it can also be videos. So what did we do? We thought that this is happening more and more. We got a phone call at our helpline, a girl saying, oh, my photo’s being spread around across the school, but actually I never made one. So turns out that actually somebody used AI to create a fake photo, and then later slut-shamed her with a photo that she never even took. This is something that’s happening more and more, but there was no research nowhere in the world around this, so we did a study that we just went to look about the markets, how are these apps working, how easily can you find them? Can you just Google them? Turns out, yes, spoiler alert, you can just Google those apps. Just some numbers, because you can scan the QR code and go to the study directly, but just so you know, and it’s from last year. The numbers right now would be higher. 42% know what deep notes are. 23% has seen at least one. 13.8% has received one deep note, or more, of course. And 60% of those who know deep noting apps have used them. It’s a very important one to know. And 99% of all the victims are girls. Why? Because until, let’s say, somewhere in this year, the deep noting apps, they would not work with boys, because they were mainly trained on female data. But actually, this percentage now should be a little bit more down. opening more and more cases of sextortion with boys. Why? Because, we will go there later, it’s because boys are the main victims of sextortion, right? And perpetrators are finding ways to sextort them. And now, if you can do it with a fake photo, why not? It’s easier for the perpetrators. Here we are, sextortion. The same, 2018 till 2023. Yellow means content sextortion, which, first of all, I should ask, does everybody know what sextortion means? Not everybody? Okay, basically, it’s somebody who gets extorted with their own nude pictures. So, mostly boys, because 90% of the victims of sextortion are boys, they get into contact with another person online, they are chatting, and the conversation goes in a sexual way. The boy is pursued to send naked photos, and then afterwards, they will have to pay money, or these photos will be transferred to their parents or to their friends, so they’re being scammed, basically, with their own photos. That’s what sextortion means, sexual extortion. And this phenomenon is on the rise. 400% up over five years. And we have some ideas why this might be the case. First of all, young people are online at a much younger age, but also perpetrators are having a much easier time to find them. And now, they are also starting to use AI to do this. So, this is something that really scares us and that we really should work with children more and more about. We need to tell them, we need to give them the tools to have conversation about this topic and to stop this from happening, right? This extreme rise. I will skip this. This is just like how in the present it got more and more picked up, that this is a big problem, but also, that there’s now also a link with. with sextortion and these deep nudes that I talked to you beforehand about, right? There might be a person who makes a fake photo of you, but then says, if you don’t pay me, I will show this fake photo to your parents. This is happening right now. So right now you can be extorted or scammed with a real photo, with a photo of you that’s been nudified. What does that mean? With a bikini photo that you use a website or an app that takes a bikini off, fakely, but it looks so realistic that everybody believes it, or with a completely fake photo that they just use your face and they make a naked photo of this. But also on the grooming side, because if you want to pursue a boy to send naked photos, the boy needs to be groomed in the first place, right? He needs to think that he’s talking to a sexy girl around the same age, right? But now with live deep fake technology, I’m a 37 year old man, but on the screen you could see a 15 year old girl and also the voice of a 14 year old girl in any language that there is. So it’s being made very, very easy for perpetrators to find their way into tackling young boys. So this is something that we really want to worry about, warn about, sorry. Within the InSafe community, we see that these are European trends, but if I’m talking to my colleagues of NACMAC or even in certain African countries, we see it’s a worldwide problem. It makes sense, right? Because these people who are looking for victims online, they do not necessarily have a sexual interest in the child. No, they’re just finding a way to earn money. So it’s a lot about gangs that are using technology for their own good in order to get money, to scam people off. And this is also maybe something that I should also… also tell you that now we should also rethink our prevention work. To give an example, if we’re talking in the past about parenting, parents that are sharing photos of their children, we would say like, oh maybe you should watch out with swimming pool photos of your child because people might take it out of context, right? They might sexualize this photo. But now people can generate abuse material of children just by the photo of a face. Maybe we should go to new prevention tips towards parents. Maybe we should even say like, okay, you should send photos, family photos, keep it maybe in an encrypted WhatsApp of the family and maybe don’t post them online. So this is something we should think about. But on the one hand, we want to keep our safe message towards families. Internet is a good place and it offers a lot of opportunities for children. But on the other hand, we do want to warn and we want to give tools to children to find their way in a safe and responsible way. This is my last slide before I give the floor to my colleague Anna. What are the challenges now that we have? Okay, these phenomenons are here to stay and they are even on the rise and AI is making it even more easy for children to become victim. So what should we do now? Do we need to respond at EU level or even worldwide? We need more data. We need more studies for sure. We were the first study, but even that, the deep nude study was one of the first ones in the world. But even this is just showing that it exists, right? But we need more. We need to go behind like dynamics. How is this happening? Who are the perpetrators? Towards prevention, like I said, how do we work with red flags? In the old days, we would say like, oh, if you’re talking to somebody online, ask them to put their hand up and then you can see if it’s a fake image or not. Right now, with deep fakes, very easy. You don’t see the red flags anymore. Toxic masculinity, something to talk about. Like I told you, the gender part. Sharenting. And then towards hotline. what would AI-generated CSAM, which is also on the rise. And as the last one, victim extortion offenders using live deepfake technology. And if I can end maybe with one positive thing, that is the fact that victim blaming has been made impossible. Because if a child tells you, I’m the victim of deepnoding, you cannot tell that person, you should not have made that photo in the first place, right? So that might be the only positive thing I have to say here. And gender-based violence, we need to have this discussion. We need to dare to see things as they are. And it’s a gender phenomenon that we need to talk to young men and boys about their behavior online. So thank you.

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA: Hello, everyone. First of all, I would like to express how happy I am, but I think that we all are, to be able to participate again in the Internet Governance Forum. And actually, I’m absolutely, I don’t know, I’m a little bit surprised because we are here since 3 p.m. And I think we have spoken with maybe 30 or 40 people about how big challenge is kids’ safety online and from the different parts of the globe. And I think this is exactly what we love about the Internet Governance Forum. So it’s so good to be here at this event again. And now I will tell you something about how the Polish cipher Internet works. I think there is no presentation, actually. Someone could help. There it is. Okay. Okay, I think we are… We are here. Sabrina told you how the Safer Internet Centers look in Europe. So here only the information who builds the Safer Internet Center in Poland. So we cooperate, the two organizations cooperate together. It’s Empowering Children Foundation, that is the NGO, and it’s a National Research Institute, NASK, and I’m representing NASK, the Research Institute, and here you can see what are our competences. NASK is one of the leading institutions for cyber security, but we are also very involved in safety actions, and we’ve started our work within the Polish Safer Internet Center in 2004, so it’s actually 21 years that we operate. And here is how we are constructed, so we cooperate together to deliver awareness activities and educational activities, and then helplines are run by the foundation, and at NASK we have hotlines, so the team responding to the illegal content online, but today we are focusing on the helpline support that we provide to children. Okay, can I ask for the second slide? Ah, okay. Now I have to go back? Ah, now I would know, I have to point different direction. Okay, sorry for that. Okay, so being the public institution as NASK, we operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Digital Affairs, so we are very involved also in the policy that is developed at the moment in Poland, I think one of the most important issues. is now the new law that is being developed, the law that is going to protect children from the illegal content, but also harmful content, not only illegal. And of course we are as well in all the process of the implementation of the DSA in Poland. We are also promoting the main activities. One of those activities that we are promoting also here at our booth, like Nils said, we invite you very warmly to our booth. We are talking a lot about the Safer Internet Day. This is like a big global event and it will come very soon because it will be 11th of February. So you can come to us and we will talk about it more. And here you can see some statistics on how the event looks in Poland. We managed to attract over one million and a half participants last year. So we are trying every year to get more and more impact. Our main mission is what Sabrina said and Nils, is to protect children and to secure their safe experience online. And here you can see how the helpline services work in Poland. So we have three branches of the helpline. We have the helpline for children, which is 116 and 111. That is available 24 hours, 7 days a week in two languages, Polish and Ukrainian. And we have among the counselors, we have lawyers. psychologists, sexologists. What is very important, nor in 116, 111, nor in the helpline for adults, 800, 100, 100, adults and carers and teachers, we don’t have interns, we have only professionals. But also what we provide is offline assistance. There is something called Child on the Web Counseling Center and carers, parents can come also to these centers to get some offline assistance. Okay, and among different types of reports that we receive in a helpline, one is the one that Niels picked because we wanted to talk about the most emerging trends that we can observe in our centers. So Niels was talking about extortion and I will focus on cyberbullying, which is one of also the emerging trends, especially in Poland. Okay, and I think all of you know what is cyberbullying. It’s of course a violence carried out by using electronic devices. These are few examples of different kinds of cyberbullying. We have things, situations like happy slapping, so you cause some accident, you attack somebody and then you film that and you put it online. You can do frapping, which is using somebody’s identity if someone forgot to log out. It can be of course stalking, one of the most serious risks that might happen for young people and for adults as well. You can have identity theft and this is the difference between identity theft and frapping, that here someone wants to get some financial benefits from that. And then of course there is a hate speech and I think on this we will focus mostly. And what is the difference between cyberbullying and the regular bullying? Because actually sometimes we go away from saying cyberbullying because sometimes you know it it sounded like something less important than regular bullying but actually it’s even sometimes more important. It harasses the child in the same way. We had here the wide reach, extremely wide reach, sometimes it cannot be stopped. We have this idea of anonymity so it’s easier for someone to be a bully. It’s very often the lack of adult supervision because as you know many of those cyberbullying cases they happen in communicators like whatsapp or messenger and very often like kids have a huge groups of friends of of peers but very often there the cyberbullying happens and the adults not necessarily knows about it. Okay and what is really problematic in Poland right now is that we are on a top list of cases that relate to the cyberbullying. We are on the in some research it’s we are on the fifth place in the European Union sometimes we are even on the first like in a research UK it’s online so it’s like a huge problem in Poland and of course the problem raises and the most of the bullies and the most of the victims these are kids around 13 years old so we can see that this is the moment when we really have to start with all the prophylactics prevention actions activities because this is the moment where it’s absolutely needed and of course why because 13 is a moment when kids go to the social media and I think you all know about the huge and wide discussion about postponing the moment when it will be legal like in Australia they put it to the 16 years old. So now I think we are in a very broad international discussion if the social media should be available from 16 years old because this is when really the problem starts and it is somehow related to this age. And also what Neil said, like the experience it goes slower. So now it’s the average 8 years old who is having alone and for his own mobile phone and then the time races. Yes, now from our research in Poland it’s 5 hours 36 minutes a day that a kid is in front of the screen. And of course the connotation of these two phenomena is not helping with the fighting and preventing the cyber bullying. These are Polish statistics so here you can see that over 40% of young people had experienced, not experienced by themselves, but could see online the situation of cyber bullying against their peers. And this you can see what were the reasons. Yes, here you see the physical appearance, clothing, style and these are the issues that very often are underestimated by their parents and carers. Like people think okay what a big deal, yes, but these are the situations, these are the cases that are most often the topics for the cyber bullying. And of course it goes also together with the excessive use of the internet because when the child posts online a photo, even by themselves, yes, and then the photo is not receiving enough likes that was expected or is receiving some, you know, bad comments. Then the child is all the time online and checking, checking, checking, counting the likes. If there is not enough likes then the child even sometimes, you know, delete the photo. So this is also all this, you know, the tension around this causes also the excessive… use of the Internet. What is very important in our work, we talk more and more about empowering children and not so much about, well, we talk about the protection but it’s, we have to change, you know, the accents. We have to more talk about empowerment and this is also what kids tell them by themselves. There was a very good research in Australia, I’m repeating Australia, the second time, but they did a huge job recently and there is a very interesting research and they’ve asked the young people what they need from adults to be more resilient from the cyberbullying and what they said was we need to have higher self-esteem, we need to be able to create like the safe relationship, we need to know how to be assertive, so these are the competences they needed, not necessarily how to protect my, you know, profile, yes, so they didn’t want any technical information from us but they want us to really empower them from this point of view. And what is the problem? I mean, they don’t get enough empowerment now from parents and even they get very bad examples on how to behave online. We have lots of problems with the troll parenting but I think it’s a global problem. I’m not sure if you’ve heard about this cheese challenge and egg challenge. This is something for me, like it’s very sad but it got a huge dissemination. These are the cases when there are parents and the little child crying, this cheese challenge and the child is crying and the parent want to chill the child throwing at him cheese and then it’s like a slice of cheese and then of course the child stopped crying because it’s like shocked, yes, and it’s always filming and put online and it’s like a ha ha ha, look how funny my child reacted. Sometimes the child is crying, sometimes the child is, you know, is frightened. And the second example, the egg challenge, is the parents invite a young girl, boy, a child to cook a cake together. Of course, they prepare all the scene for the filming and then in the moment when you have to add the egg to produce a cake, and of course, the child is not happy because these are the small kids, like five, four, six, so for them cooking with parents, baking with parents is something really cool. And in the moment that you should put the egg to the cake, then you broke the egg on the head of a child. And of course, the child is shocked, yes, because… And also, all these reactions are put online and it’s like funny. So, like the examples from the adult world are really not good and it gets like millions of likes and is totally disseminated. And here, talking about the sharenting, because very often the sharenting is also a part of this all cyber bullying process that is happening to our children. This is the Polish research as well. We asked them, do they like when parents post photos about them? Because there is like 70% of parents in Poland post photos of their children online. And you can see that 23% is not happy, like feels embarrassed. And it’s not necessarily must be a photo, you know, like a bad photo, like from the troll parenting photo. It can be a regular photo, but as I said in the few slides before, they really take a lot of care about their appearance online, about the identity that they create. And very often, because of some spontaneously posted photos by parents, they also get cyber bullied. They get bullied by their peers. And because there is still a very big problem in, I would say, in the belief that kids have to the parents, adults, teachers, that we can help. Very little, very little. percent of teenagers really goes to somebody when it happened, when they experience cyberbullying. It’s 38 percent, over 38 percent, who don’t go to anybody because what they hear from the first moment, of course, because all happened because you’ve spent too much time online, yes, so they are afraid that we will take off the mobile phone from them and they will be victimized for all the bad situation that happened. So these are the procedures, these are the situations that we have to educate parents on how to react when child come to us. And the cyberbullying is so present online that it’s even hard for them sometimes to say if they were bullied, if something was already a hate speech or it was just, you know, a joke because they are so surrounded by this kind of situations. And talking about and trying to prevent the cyberbullying, we have to always remember about the three roles that are involved. We have to remember about the bully who is also a child and needs our assistance. We have to remember about the witness who is actually one of the most important actor with all the situation because this is the person who is not that much emotionally involved in a problem and can react. But what is very important, we always have to emphasize for the witness that they have to react only in a way that is safe for them. Sometimes even not putting like to some, you know, bad post is already reaction. Sometimes to go to your parent is a reaction. But we have to always repeat to the child that not all reaction can be safe for them. It’s like, you know, in a first aid on the street the first information that we get for the person who is learning how to give the first aid is first you have to secure your own safety. Yes, you have to check if any car is not coming. Yes, so this is the same thing happens with the witness of the cyberbullying. And we have also, of course, the person who is experiencing bullying and we have to be very careful on the signs that might happen because each child can react totally differently. There might be a child who is excessively checking what is happening online but there might be a child who is not checking at all and just don’t look at the internet totally. But the effects of the long-term cyber bullying might be absolutely horrifying. They can lead to depression situations and even to the self-harm activities. I think I have to rush, yes, we don’t have too much time. We have to remember that talking about the prevention we have to always take care of all the environment around the child and we have to do this action permanently. We have to repeat like with all the situations regarding the safety of a child we have to keep repeating what should be done and we as a helpline we try to secure all these pathways. We help the child to cooperate with the police to provide the right evidence. We have to be present at schools. We help them with developing the right procedures. We help with all the collaboration when there is a cyber bullying situation in a school then we help you know to all this what happens between teachers, directors and parents. We give psychological support and we also help in a contact with the contacts to the operators and to know what is happening in our teenagers lives, to know how we can help them. We cooperate with children a lot and we provide them lots of different educational services. We organize a big conference for them, digital youth forum. It will be already the 10th one this June. We cooperate a lot with our youth panel and now we’ve started a totally new initiatives which we call the cyberspots and this is the building that school teams focus on digital issues. So we try to build the teams that can be invited by school authorities for example to work on some policies. These are kids who would tell what they have the biggest problems with and we started a month ago and we now have over 200 schools that joined this action. So it’s absolutely fantastic. We had a meeting with them and we had a thousand young people learning how to become those digital leaders at schools and we got lots of educational materials and we invite all of you to contact us if you would like to learn more and we invite you of course to our booth for next days. Thank you very much.

SABRINA VORBAU: Thank you very much Anna. As said these were just two country examples from Poland and from Belgium but of course as we all know these are global issues we have to work together. We heard a couple of times already how important it is to involve children and young people into the conversation and also create a conversation with them. Listen to them and take them seriously into account. That’s why I’m also very happy that I’m very happy that we have one of our Better Internet for Kids youth ambassadors with us, Joao. He has been supporting us for over 10 years now starting really the first time working with the Portuguese Safer Internet Center and with us as Better Internet for Kids when he was 13-14 years old. He’s also part of the youth IGF and I think it’s very important that Joao is connecting with us today to also hear the perspective of the young people why it is so important to have services like safer internet centers, to have a national helpline, and how we also can encourage children and young people to contact those services and to have a conversation, to share with us what they experience online and how can we help them. Joao, I hope you can hear us. I give you the floor now. Yes, can I just confirm that in the room the sound is okay? Yes, we can hear you.

JOAO PEDRO: Very nice. So, good afternoon, good evening, good morning everyone that is joining on the discussion today, thanks Sabrina for the presentation. Indeed, I’m one of the Better Internet for Kids Youth Ambassador. The idea is to be a bridge between providing awareness to young people and providing feedback from those awareness sessions to the wider Better Internet for Kids Network that collaborates with online platforms and decision makers to include the feedback from a youth perspective. Regarding the helplines and bringing it to the context of the Portuguese Safer Internet Center Helpline. In this case, it’s run by APAV, which is the Victims Support Association for Portugal. And indeed, it plays a crucial role providing these services. It’s actually a link between their expertise with let’s say the offline cases and the online support that it’s now providing for young people. And I think it’s important to reflect on a couple of things. So, helplines are beneficial, indeed, what we see in terms of the interactions with young people is that they are… getting the right support to the claims that they have, either because of cases of dealing with online harassment, harmful content, personal crisis, and that part helplines provide immediate relief. It’s also a valuable tool for educational guidance in terms of seeking digital rights, safe online practices, so helplines are helping bridging that gap. And I think it’s also a tool to provide access to further help, so either a young person or an educator that seeks helplines such as the Portuguese one have at least an opportunity to get the proper recommendation of whose authority or whose institution should they go further to tackle a certain problem. Of course it’s not everything perfect because if we are seeing that the helpline use is increasing, you also have to ensure that it’s widespread enough because if they are having good results it means that we should provide that tool or bring awareness of that tool to more and more young people. And I think that when it comes to the awareness challenges to such helpline services there are a few, so there are indeed a little bit of barriers to access in terms of that some young people may face stigma, don’t know really how to reach these services, and of course the solution has to come from a perspective of enhancing visibility through schools, through the youth programs. social media and it’s it’s in this step that I see the most effort being made especially around dates like the Safer Internet Day where typically the helpline number is provided or disseminated widely across the broader Safer Internet Day campaigns. That part I think it’s very important. From a youth perspective it’s interesting to see that the confidentiality and trust is something that is very tangible, very thin and it’s sometimes hard to breach hard to breach concept. So providing the anonymity while maintaining the reporting obligations of helpline are typically the challenges that someone operating those services might face. The scope of strengthening the helpline’s accessibility and future directions. Actually it’s becoming ever more interesting and understanding what should be done on this part. It’s an ongoing discussion but for instance recognising the hotline side of these services under the trusted flaggers role under the DSA. It will be possibly an interesting way of ensuring quick responses to the illegal online content reporting such as taking down the child sexual abuse material or hate speech. Also something that is relevant is of course including feedback from the youth that is interacting with the helplines and I think a best practice has been already shown in the two use cases that we’ve seen, so reporting or decision making based on the numbers and facts that are collective also from the current helpline usage helps of course to improve the helpline quality. And of course wherever it’s possible to expand the reach, I think right now the Portuguese helpline is a good example because it bridges all the offline impacts from the know-how of the Portuguese Association for the Support of the Victims with the online and more scoped environment of youth safety online. And yeah, I would say that’s basically most of my potential contribution. I think it’s important to expand awareness initiatives, normalizing the helpline use, not becoming a stigma and ensuring accessibility, mostly by providing the different forms of contact as also shown in the previous slide.

SABRINA VORBAU: Thank you very much Joao for your intervention. I think it’s very important to have these voices of young people represented specifically at forums like the IGF. Here on the slide you can see and connect with the Safer Internet Centre in your country. Of course this is a European initiative but not exclusively. We do also work with like-minded organizations at the global level. We have a program which is called Safer Internet Centre Plus and through initiatives like the Global Safer Internet Day you can be able to get in touch with us. You can create and act like the Safer Internet Day community. within your country. Safer Internet Day is an international international day that we celebrate every year on the second Tuesday in February. It’s a day where we stand together and raise awareness for a safer and a better Internet and we are also very happy to exchange with you how you can set up a safer Internet Center in your country, how can you establish these operational infrastructures of helplines and hotlines. We have great expertise there. We are coming to the end of the session but my colleagues already told you we are also represented in the IGF village at the Insafe booth. We will be here throughout this week and we are happy to share more best practices and more information with you. At European level we are also working under the Better Internet for Kids plus strategy that really emphasizes, it’s a policy at European level that really emphasizes and is built on three pillars. It’s about youth protection, youth participation and youth empowerment and this is really something we are trying to incorporate at a very integral level, trying to have voices of young people in all our actions. So this just invites me to also visit us online betterinternetforkids.europa.eu. As said we have a resource gallery there where we provide in multiple languages resources also for teachers, for parents. We have heard from my colleagues how vital it is to not only educate children and young people but also the adults for a more, for a better, safer and also more inclusive online behavior. I don’t think we have to much time for questions but as I said please do come by and visit us at the booth and thank you very much for joining our session today and we wish you a nice evening. We have five minutes by the way so if anyone has a question

Audience: Hello, I am Sadat Raman from Bangladesh. I would like to share our idea because we follow safer internet, better internet centre and also last year we celebrate safer internet day in Bangladesh and also we have a helpline, so we are working for the teenagers in Bangladesh, so we know the teenager age range is 13 to 19, so our helpline number is 13, then 2, then 19, so it is very easy to remember and it is toll free national helpline number and powered by the young people in Bangladesh and my three members have come to join this event, so we would like to collaborate with you and Nusk and also Nils from the Dial Focus, and also in Bangladesh we are trying to launch Amber Alert in Bangladesh, so we open a website called amberalertforbangladesh.org, so we are trying to sign 1 lakh petitions and we will launch this platform in Bangladesh because in Bangladesh child are missing day by day, so thank you so much and we hope we will work together for the betterment of the teenager and children. Thank you. I am very sure about that. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Importance of Safer Internet Centers

speakers

SABRINA VORBAU

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

JOAO PEDRO

arguments

Safer Internet Centers provide awareness, helplines, hotlines and youth panels

Belgian Safer Internet Center focuses on missing and sexually exploited children

Polish Safer Internet Center involves research institute and NGO collaboration

Helplines offer crucial support and guidance for young people online

summary

All speakers emphasized the crucial role of Safer Internet Centers in providing support, awareness, and resources for online safety.

Rising online safety challenges

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

arguments

Non-consensual sharing of intimate images is a growing problem

Sextortion cases have increased 400% in 5 years

AI and deepfakes are creating new online safety challenges

Cyberbullying is a major issue, especially in Poland

summary

Speakers highlighted the increasing prevalence of various online safety issues, including non-consensual image sharing, sextortion, AI-related challenges, and cyberbullying.

Need for empowerment and education

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

JOAO PEDRO

arguments

Importance of not victim-blaming and addressing gender stereotypes

Focus on empowering children rather than just protection

Expanding awareness and accessibility of helpline services

summary

Speakers agreed on the importance of empowering and educating young people, rather than just focusing on protection, to address online safety issues.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the need for more research and international collaboration to address emerging online safety challenges.

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

arguments

Need for more data and studies on emerging online risks

Cybersafety issues are global and require worldwide cooperation

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of youth involvement

speakers

SABRINA VORBAU

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

JOAO PEDRO

arguments

Safer Internet Centers provide awareness, helplines, hotlines and youth panels

Focus on empowering children rather than just protection

Helplines offer crucial support and guidance for young people online

explanation

While not unexpected, there was a strong consensus on the importance of involving youth in online safety initiatives, which was emphasized across different aspects of the discussion.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers showed strong agreement on the importance of Safer Internet Centers, the need to address rising online safety challenges, and the focus on empowering and educating young people. There was also consensus on the need for more research and international collaboration.

Consensus level

High level of consensus among speakers, indicating a shared understanding of key issues and approaches in online safety. This consensus suggests a strong foundation for coordinated efforts in addressing online safety challenges across different countries and organizations.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to prevention and support

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

arguments

Importance of not victim-blaming and addressing gender stereotypes

Focus on empowering children rather than just protection

summary

While both speakers emphasize the importance of supporting children, Niels focuses on addressing gender stereotypes and avoiding victim-blaming, while Anna emphasizes empowering children by building self-esteem and teaching assertiveness.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the specific approaches to prevention and support for children facing online risks.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. They generally agree on the importance of protecting children online but have slightly different focuses and approaches. This suggests a collaborative environment where various strategies can be implemented to address online safety issues for children.

Partial Agreements

All speakers agree on the importance of addressing online risks for children, but they focus on different aspects: Niels emphasizes the need for more research, Anna highlights the specific issue of cyberbullying, and Joao stresses the role of helplines in providing support.

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

JOAO PEDRO

arguments

Need for more data and studies on emerging online risks

Cyberbullying is a major issue, especially in Poland

Helplines offer crucial support and guidance for young people online

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the need for more research and international collaboration to address emerging online safety challenges.

speakers

NIELS VAN PAEMEL

ANNA RYWCZYNSKA

arguments

Need for more data and studies on emerging online risks

Cybersafety issues are global and require worldwide cooperation

Key Takeaways

Safer Internet Centers play a crucial role in providing support, education and resources for online safety across Europe

Current online safety trends include increasing cases of non-consensual image sharing, sextortion, cyberbullying, and emerging AI-related risks

Prevention approaches are shifting towards empowering youth rather than just protection

International collaboration is essential to address global cybersafety issues

Youth voices and participation are vital in developing effective online safety initiatives

Resolutions and Action Items

Expand awareness and accessibility of helpline services for young people

Conduct more research and gather data on emerging online risks like AI-generated content

Incorporate youth feedback to improve helpline quality and services

Promote Safer Internet Day globally to raise awareness

Explore recognizing hotlines as trusted flaggers under the DSA

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively address the rapid rise in sextortion cases

Best approaches to educate parents on appropriate online sharing of children’s information

Strategies to encourage more young people to seek help when experiencing online issues

How to adapt prevention messaging in light of new AI-enabled risks

Suggested Compromises

None identified

We are seeing that it’s actually going, oh my God, I have the wrong, yes. So we’re seeing that it’s really on the rise, right? And not only in Belgium, it’s a European phenomenon, and also worldwide.

speaker

Niels van Paemel

reason

This comment highlights the alarming rise of non-consensual sharing of intimate images, framing it as a global issue rather than just a local one.

impact

It shifted the discussion from a country-specific focus to a broader, international perspective on online safety issues.

Research shows that in Belgium, only 15% of victims reach out, and we want to heighten that number. And how do we do that? By making children reassured that they are not alone, that they have been the victim of something, and then we can give them the tools to not only reach out, but also find help and also go to the takedown of certain images.

speaker

Niels van Paemel

reason

This insight emphasizes the importance of empowering victims and creating a supportive environment for reporting incidents.

impact

It led to a discussion on strategies to encourage reporting and support victims, moving beyond just prevention to focus on response and support.

42% know what deep notes are. 23% has seen at least one. 13.8% has received one deep note, or more, of course. And 60% of those who know deep noting apps have used them. It’s a very important one to know. And 99% of all the victims are girls.

speaker

Niels van Paemel

reason

This comment introduces concrete data on the prevalence and gender dynamics of deep fake technology misuse.

impact

It brought attention to an emerging technological threat and its disproportionate impact on girls, leading to a discussion on gender-based online violence.

We need to tell them, we need to give them the tools to have conversation about this topic and to stop this from happening, right? This extreme rise.

speaker

Anna Rywczynska

reason

This comment emphasizes the need for education and empowerment of young people to address online safety issues.

impact

It shifted the focus from protective measures to empowering youth with knowledge and skills, leading to a discussion on educational approaches.

From a youth perspective it’s interesting to see that the confidentiality and trust is something that is very tangible, very thin and it’s sometimes hard to breach hard to breach concept. So providing the anonymity while maintaining the reporting obligations of helpline are typically the challenges that someone operating those services might face.

speaker

Joao Pedro

reason

This comment provides valuable insight from a youth perspective on the delicate balance between confidentiality and reporting obligations in helpline services.

impact

It introduced the youth perspective into the discussion, highlighting the importance of trust and anonymity in encouraging young people to seek help.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by broadening the scope from country-specific issues to global trends, highlighting the importance of empowering victims and youth education, introducing emerging technological threats, and emphasizing the need for a balanced approach to confidentiality and reporting in helpline services. The discussion evolved from describing problems to exploring solutions, with a strong focus on youth perspectives and gender-specific challenges in online safety.

How can we address the rise of AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM)?

speaker

Niels van Paemel

explanation

This is an emerging challenge that requires new approaches for detection and prevention.

How can we combat the use of live deepfake technology by offenders for grooming and extortion?

speaker

Niels van Paemel

explanation

This new technology makes it easier for perpetrators to deceive and exploit children, requiring updated prevention strategies.

How should we adapt our prevention work and advice to parents regarding sharing photos of children online, given the new risks posed by AI image generation?

speaker

Niels van Paemel

explanation

Traditional advice may no longer be sufficient given the ability to generate abusive content from innocuous photos.

How can we better work with young men and boys to address toxic masculinity and problematic online behavior?

speaker

Niels van Paemel

explanation

This is identified as a key factor in online gender-based violence and exploitation.

Should the minimum age for social media use be raised to 16, as implemented in Australia?

speaker

Anna Rywczynska

explanation

This is part of an ongoing international discussion to address cyberbullying and other online risks for young teens.

How can we improve the reporting and support mechanisms for cyberbullying, given that only a small percentage of teenagers seek help from adults?

speaker

Anna Rywczynska

explanation

The low rate of reporting indicates a need for better trust-building and support systems.

How can helpline services balance the need for anonymity with reporting obligations?

speaker

Joao Pedro

explanation

This is a challenge in maintaining trust while fulfilling legal and ethical responsibilities.

How can the role of helpline hotlines be strengthened under the Digital Services Act’s trusted flagger system?

speaker

Joao Pedro

explanation

This could potentially improve response times to illegal online content reports.