The World Wide Web — if it’s for everyone, it should be safe for everyone
It seems like only yesterday that the inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee tweeted ‘this is for everyone’. His words were part of the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, when they beamed around the Olympic Stadium and to the billion people watching across the globe.
His tweet was a celebration of the World Wide Web, a monumental British invention that has changed the world and how we view it forever. And this year we’re marking its 30th anniversary.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Berners-Lee’s invention 30 years ago has revolutionised communication. Children and young adults who’ve grown up in the digital age have access to exponentially more information than their parents did, and all with just a few clicks.
And when he said ‘this is for everyone’, he really meant it. The web has democratised information and knowledge in a way that was simply unfathomable when I was a child.
But because it’s for everyone, as well as being a place of wonder, knowledge and fun, it can also pose risks, especially to children.
We all know the internet has a dark side and there is potential for harm, just as there is in real life. But while there are myriad laws and rules that protect real world spaces — from zebra crossings, to placing pornography on the top shelf — the same is not true for the internet.
Unfortunately, the system for protecting children, especially vulnerable children, falls short when it comes to the online world.
While the landmark child protection legislation, The Children Act 1989 — also celebrating its 30th anniversary this year — has been amended 20 times in its three decades, the system it underpins has not kept pace with advances in technology, meaning children and young people are vulnerable to new and ever-changing dangers.
The timelines of the Act and the web have existed in parallel for three decades. The web has developed and expanded with innovations like instant messaging and social media, while the Act has been expanded, often in response to the tragic deaths of children such as Victoria Climbie, Jessica Chapman, Holly Wells and Peter Connelly, which shocked society into action.
But recent events suggest that our legal framework just doesn’t go far enough. Molly Russell took her own life in 2017 after viewing self-harm content on social media, and although Instagram has reviewed its rules following her death, there has so far been no change in the law to protect other young people. In a recent survey for Barnardo’s we found that more than 80 per cent of adults worried that children and young people could be groomed, exploited or bullied online.
As a society, it’s clear we’re already behind the curve. And with communication and technology changing faster than ever before, the laws, policies and systems that protect children are only going to fall further behind in the future.
Barnardo’s new Generation Digital report shows that around a quarter of children and a third of adults think that in 30 years’ time we’ll be using holograms and body implants. Just 13 per cent of children and 10 per cent of adults think we’ll still be communicating using an old fashioned pen and paper.
So how do we prepare for the risks these changes could bring?
Threats to children’s safety like these must be met with a tough legislative response. That’s why we are urging the government to introduce new regulation without delay so tech companies have a duty to keep children safe, particularly those who are already vulnerable, like children who have experienced abuse or neglect, children in the care system and those with mental health problems.
But of course the Government can’t keep our children safe alone. We all have a part to play. Schools need the necessary resource and expertise to deliver high quality, effective lessons on online safety; information for parents should be included as part of the new mandatory Relationships and Sex Education starting next September; and families should have local services they can turn to for support before problems escalate.
The World Wide Web has brought fantastic opportunities for children and young people — but we must make sure it’s safe so they can enjoy those advantages to the full.
To date, as a society we’ve been caught sleeping on the job while new risks have emerged. We need to wake up and urgently improve our understanding of the overall impact — both positive and negative — of growing up in a digital world.
