Need to create "digital vaccine" for children on social networks

Sharing with The Gioi and Viet Nam Newspaper, Ms. Nguyen Thi Nga, Deputy Director of the Department of Children - Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, said that creating a "digital vaccine" for children is necessary, so that children can protect themselves from harmful content on social networks.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Nga expressed her opinion that it is necessary to educate children on how to behave intelligently and use social networks safely to avoid the risk of falling into "black holes" in the virtual world. (Photo: NVCC)

Children are increasingly accessing social networks. How do you assess the pitfalls and risks in this space for children?

Besides positive and useful information, there is a lot of negative information that is not well controlled on social networks, such as pornography, violence, drugs, negative behavior... Children who use phones every day can easily access this type of information, leading to deviant thinking and actions.

In addition, the dissemination of private information and online bullying negatively affects children's psychology, causing them to fall into a state of anxiety, panic, and even leading to suicide in some cases.

Furthermore, the situation of luring and enticing children into harassment, fraud, intimidation, illegal acts, or addiction to social networks, games, and the Internet greatly affects the health, spirit, and life of children...

From that reality, in my opinion, it is necessary to educate children on how to behave intelligently and use social networks safely to avoid the risk of falling into the “black holes” of the virtual world. To do so, it is necessary to provide children with knowledge and skills to protect themselves and interact healthily and creatively in the online environment. In other words, it is necessary to create a “digital vaccine” for children, so that they can protect themselves from harmful content on the internet.

Nowadays, the risk of child abuse in the online environment is increasingly complex and unpredictable. What should families do to protect their children?

Parents play an important role in protecting, caring for and educating their children. Therefore, it is necessary to cultivate knowledge and skills in moral education, personality and children's rights; create a safe environment, avoid accidents and injuries for children, and at the same time, prevent the risk of children falling into special circumstances leading to abuse.

In addition, parents need to comply with measures and regulations of competent agencies and individuals to ensure safety, protect the life, body, dignity, honor and privacy of children.

Furthermore, parents need to pay attention, talk to, encourage and motivate children to access websites with healthy content. At the same time, guide their children about the time and method of participating in the Internet. Warn them about the risks that children may encounter in the online environment and how to handle them.

Besides equipping children with knowledge and skills to avoid getting "lost" in cyberspace, what solutions do authorities need to have?

In recent times, the Party, the State and the entire political system have taken strong action to protect children on the Internet. Vietnam has built a legal system on protecting children on the Internet, creating an important legal basis such as: Law on Children, Law on Cyber ​​Security, Law on Network Information Security, Law on Access to Information... Article 54 of the Law on Children specifically stipulates the responsibility to protect children on the Internet.

Vietnam and ASEAN countries adopted the Declaration on Protecting Children from All Forms of Online Exploitation and Abuse in ASEAN (2019); Declaration on Eliminating Bullying in ASEAN, including Online Bullying (2021).

Protecting children in general and children in the online environment in particular is an interdisciplinary issue, requiring the joint efforts of many sectors and the whole society. Relevant agencies and organizations are responsible for propagating, educating and protecting children when participating in the online environment in all forms. Parents, teachers and caregivers are responsible for educating and guiding children in skills to protect themselves.

Organizations and individuals that manage and provide information and communication products and services and organize activities in the online environment must take measures to ensure the safety and privacy of children in accordance with the provisions of law.

To equip children with knowledge and skills, it is necessary to have a set of documents, methods, forms of communication, and awareness raising that are diverse, specific, and appropriate to the age and psychology of children. Most importantly, inter-sectoral coordination needs to be synchronous and promote the role of families and schools.

Need to filter bad, toxic videos on social networks for children. Illustration photo. (Source: Internet)

What are your specific recommendations to protect and help children interact healthily in this environment?

To prevent children from becoming victims and encountering risks in the online environment, prevention plays an important and decisive role. Here, it is about creating habits and skills for children to use the internet safely, helping them to take advantage of the benefits and endless resources on the internet, but also knowing how to prevent risks and dangers.

In addition, it is necessary to build and perfect the legal corridor; educate and communicate to raise awareness and equip skills; deploy technical measures and solutions, apply technology; perfect the organizational structure, improve law enforcement capacity; and strengthen international cooperation.

Furthermore, it is necessary to strengthen the role of families, parents and schools in training, supervising and guiding children to use the Internet safely. At the same time, it is necessary to help children know how to recognize harmful and inappropriate information and video clips, and how to control personal information.

The most important thing in any solution is to openly discuss and talk with your child to find out what content they often access and use and why, so that you can proactively guide them on how to search for and use appropriate information and images.

Need a tool to filter bad, harmful videos for children

"Children need a powerful, effective tool to filter online content, helping them avoid being exposed to bad, toxic information. Current tools are limited to image and text processing, while video processing requires complex technology, and there are almost no filtering tools."

Ms. Dinh Thi Nhu Hoa (Vietnam Cyber ​​Emergency Response Center, Department of Information Security - Ministry of Information and Communications)

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/can-tao-vaccine-so-cho-tre-em-tren-mang-xa-hoi-228154.html