CSocD63 Beyond Access: Youth Online Safety and Digital Equity

On 12 February, the Permanent Mission of Paraguay to the United Nations, the Blue Tree Foundation (BTF), and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) came together to host the event ‘Beyond Access: Youth Online Safety and Digital Equity’ at the CSocD63. At the event, panelists addressed some of the current ethical issues that threaten digital inclusion and discussed various recommendations for creating and maintaining safe online spaces in the future.

Current ethical issues

Gender and age inequalities

Kathryn Travers, Policy Specialist at UN Women, emphasized the key gender gaps that exist concerning digital access, with 85% of women reporting having witnessed or experienced technology-based gender violence. UN Women recently found that women in public-facing careers (such as journalists and politicians) are most likely to be targets of gender-based threats online. Such trends threaten to discourage women from running for office or engaging in politics to avoid these spaces. Children are also targets of technology-based violence. Travers cited that 300 million children have been affected by online child sexual exploitation and abuse in the last 12 months.

Environmental impacts

Esme Longley, Negotiations Officer for the McGill Youth Advisory Delegation, expressed concern over the environmental impacts of modern technology systems. Particularly, the harm caused by servers and data centres, which require a heavy consumption of water and minerals to run and produce electronic waste. Find out more about this on UNEP: AI has an environmental problem. Here’s what the world can do about that.

Calls for action

Demand safety by design

Speakers at the event communicated the need for a change in the design of apps and online platforms to make them safer for users. Sinead Bovell, WAYE Founder, and Generation Connect Visionaries Board Member, stated that young people are not safe online because apps are not designed with their best interests in mind. Bovell raised the point that we have successfully reimagined the designs of technologies such as seatbelts and theme parks once they were deemed unsafe, and so our handling of the online world should not be any different. We have collaborated on age-appropriate design before, and we can do it again now.

Standardize digital literacy

Another pathway suggested at the event to improve online safety is standardizing digital literacy. Yumeng Liu, Youth Representative at UN DESA, brought forward the idea that individuals should be empowered to learn digital literacy skills. Such skills may help individuals recognize online dangers — such as the use of deepfakes and false news. The ability to identify these spaces in the online world will help protect individuals against engaging in harmful digital activity.

Speakers acknowledged that many digital literacy programs have been created for children, but a blind spot exists for older teens, adults, and older persons. A clear way forward is to ensure that digital literacy is prioritized and made accessible for individuals of all ages.

Clear international standards

Finally, speakers called for the creation and implementation of clear international standards and frameworks that recognize technology-based violence. As stated by Travers, this may look like greater punishments in place for people who use anonymous social media accounts to issue threats. Longley concluded that technology organizations must prioritize ethics over engagement.