NGOs, TikTok collaborate to create safe digital space for children
MANILA, Philippines — The digital environment is a dangerous place, especially for innocent children who just want to share their dancing or singing prowess with the world and, hopefully, earn a few "likes" and maybe a thousand views.
Family and friends would naturally be clicking on their videos, but so will strangers, who can help them earn good money if and when their videos go viral. These same strangers, unfortunately, can also wreak havoc on their lives.
It is for this reason that the Child Rights Coalition Asia (CRC Asia), ChildFund Korea and ChildFund Philippines, in partnership with TikTok Asia Pacific, organized a two-part dialogue consultation aimed at creating a safe, inclusive and friendly digital space for children.
Guided by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child General Comment No. 25 (2021) on children’s rights in relation to the digital environment, the intergenerational dialogue saw the youth, child rights-focused non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and TikTok officials determining children’s sentiments and experiences towards their use of online platforms and the issues they encounter involving personal privacy, false or harmful information, as well as sexual abuse and exploitation.
“The digital space is very dynamic and quickly evolving, so it demands a lot from us to be open to learn new things but, at the same time, it also challenges us to hold on to the principles of transparency, solidarity, and, of course, kindness to each other because these are also the principles that we want to be able to share with our children,” said Amihan Abueva, CRC Asia’s Regional Executive Director.
Dialogue on safe space
There were 30 participants in the dialogue, aged 13 to 18, with diverse gender profiles and coming from different parts of the country, including Metro Manila, Cabanatuan, Pampanga, Laguna, Olongapo, Quezon, Zamoanga, Ozamiz, and Cagayan de Oro.
The youth participants talked about enhancing the terms of data privacy policies with a more creative and child-friendly approach, and proposed integrating digital literacy into the younger generation’s curriculum and educating the parents as well.
They made a call for the government sector, specifically the Department of Education (DepEd), represented by the Learners Rights Protection Office (LRPO), to constantly work with civil society organizations (CSOs) and to strengthen law implementation in the country. They also shared that while social media platforms boost their confidence by letting them freely share their own expressions of gender and sexuality, they still experience being unsafe on the Internet as a public platform.
"I want to thank all the young people who expressed their thoughts and experiences with us. It was inspiring to see their awareness of digital literacy and their ability to take charge of it. This was a great avenue for us to empower more youth on the platform by building better and safer digital space for them. More so, the suggestions they shared will strengthen the industry’s safety policies involving minors and enforce support for local laws, such as RA 11930, which aims to prevent online sexual abuse and exploitation of children. We are eager to continue our collaboration with the government and NGOs to co-create a safer and more responsible online community for everyone,” said Nathaniel Ong, Trust and Safety Program Manager, TikTok.
Reaching a consensus in the end, all organizations and institutions agreed that they needed to closely work on addressing online disinformation and teaching children and the youth on how to be discerning and responsible digital citizens, how to find the balance between maximizing digital platforms as a source of knowledge and how to make them aware of the risks while not restraining their own freedom of expression.
“The past days were such a wonderful experience. I hope there are more opportunities to engage and discuss with the government, CSOs, and tech companies to develop capacities across all stakeholders. I’m very appreciative of TikTok and I hope that this is not the end of this workshop. Hopefully, we can bring this not only to the Philippines but to other countries as well,” said Jinyi Park, Global Program Manager and Communications Officer of ChildFund Korea.
RELATED: 6 key Netflix viewing control features parents need to know
