Discussing media literacy and youth protection in Stempenhof The third meeting of the Youth Protection Roundtable, YPRT, kicked off on 14 May, in the blossoming periphery of Nuremberg, Germany, with an exhibition of winning Safer Internet Day 2008 projects created by national finalist teams from Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland and Slovenia.

Throughout the day on 15 May, YPRT members, Insafe awareness nodes and young people discussed online risks that can impact on young people and their future visions of the internet landscape. Participants split into parallel sessions with youths and adults discussing similar issues separately.

In the afternoon, the groups converged and views were exchanged across age-groups in a plenary session. Everybody was eager to hear the perspective of the adolescents. The young teams identified malware, privacy, loss of money and reliability of information as main online concerns and risks. Some of the ideas young people put forward on future internet safety needs were:

• Reporting facility whereby alarming content can be referred to an internet police force.
• Peer advice by young internet experts in schools.
• Online school for expert advice and knowledge.
• Internet control agency that would control/scan content provided on the net before it can be published. A certification on internet safety awareness would be needed before having the permission to open a website. Less anonymity would bring accountability.
• Possibility of deleting unwanted data, published without the consent and knowledge of the individual.
• Special education programs for young people at an early age.
• World-wide wireless access.

As a reaction to the points raised, Finnish representatives of a community of young media experts presented their positive experience of training teachers in schools. The Finnish node confirms that it is quite a common and successful practice to use young experts to teach media literacy to adults.

The young people confirmed that while they are aware of hotlines’ existence they wonder if they can go as far as to eliminate sites with illegal content. The hotline representatives explained that it is very difficult to control content on the internet because of anonymity, or lack of harmonisation in national legislation. Moreover, censorship can limit the human right to freedom of expression. Hotlines have slightly different roles depending on the laws of the country concerned. 

In response to questions from the adult public, young people said that in some cases parents do not even know what the internet is and, in other cases, they know more or less what kind of services their children use. The young people also said that they have control of their online contacts – in most cases people they know in the real world. They claimed to spend many hours online, up to four hours or more if playing an exciting game. However, they do not think they’re doing anything bad in the virtual world; their habits include surfing, chatting and downloading.

Interestingly enough, the teenagers in the room seemed to be confident in the ways they use the internet, but they recognise that risks exist and would like to see more accountability and control of inappropriate content. The adult roundtable participants, on the other hand, cynically concluded that it is a utopia to believe that you can police the internet and control content.

What is clear is that everyone agrees on the importance of educating young people, parents and teachers on the potential and risks of online technologies.