Hawke Calls On Social Networkers To Take More Responsibility in Protecting Our Children
Thursday, 15 March 2012
The Deputy Chair of the Parliament’s Cyber Safety Committee, Alex Hawke MP has this week used a speech to Parliament to urge corporations to embrace greater social responsibility in relation to children in Australia or face tougher regulation.
“In the face of increasing prevalence of cyber bullying it is vital social networking corporations take more responsibility, especially in relation to children on line”, Mr Hawke said.
Major sites for social networking, including Facebook, Myspace and Bebo, have stated age restrictions, in most cases 13 years old as a condition of use for their site. However it is a well-known fact that there are tens of thousands of children all across Australia and around the world today using social-networking sites who are under 13.
“Given the increase in reports of cyber bullying, the question of a corporation’s social responsibility in relation to children using their sites is emerging firmly into the spotlight of public and parliamentary scrutiny.”
“All too often it is apparent that the major social networkers are squibbing any responsibility for our children online. Parliamentary committees have even heard the farcical suggestions that there are no children under 13 on their sites or that children are liars or they simply should not be there.”
“The facts are children are in this social media space and the lack of meaningful response from social networking corporations to date has been extremely disappointing.”
“If the big social networkers are unwilling to demonstrate that they can effectively self regulate, it will fall to the Parliament to look at ways we can ensure there are effective measures taken to better protect kids and deal with online bullying more effectively.”
“I urge corporate social responsibility in the internet sector in relation to social networking to ensure that our children are protected before Government is forced to act,” concluded Alex Hawke.