How to protect children from online dangers? Episode 90

Monika Rachtan
Good afternoon. Monika Rachtan. I would like to welcome you very warmly to another episode of Po Pierwsze Pacjent. Social media has become an everyday occurrence and all of us, as we sit in this room and probably our viewers as well, we move around in these social media, but our children also move around. And it is today that I will be discussing the dangers of moving around on social media with my guests, and they are Ms Magdalena Wilczyńska, Director of the Information Protection and Cyberspace Division of NASK. A very warm welcome to you.

Magdalena Wilczyńska
Good morning.

Monika Rachtan
And Ms Katarzyna Hernandez, Director of the Digital Education and Online Safety Team, Office of the Ombudsman for Children. A very warm welcome to you.

Catherine Hernandez
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome.

Monika Rachtan
Ms Catherine, maybe I will start with you, If you are looking at what social media is like today and what information our children have access to. What concerns you most?

Catherine Hernandez
This is a very hard question to answer because social media and the digital environment in general is such a dynamic, dynamic place. It's evolving basically hour by hour, day by day, and simply these threats, these challenges that we're talking about, it's basically every day something new comes up and every day basically something new would worry us. So, as I say, it's hard to say what is most worrying, but I think what is most worrying is the lack of preparation of young people for what might await them there. There is a lack of conversation, a lack of the fact that we as parents, as educators, often downplay the subject of the content to which young people are exposed online, the content that can come from there. The knowledge that they can take from there. And I think there is just such a lack of conversation about what can wait for us there, how to identify these challenges, these dangers, how to recognise them, how to react to them properly when we encounter them. And also such a lack of knowledge about where to look for help.

Catherine Hernandez
And that, I think to myself, is the biggest challenge of teaching our children how to respond and know how to help themselves, to help others.

Monika Rachtan
But is it the job, is it the job of the parents directly, to give their children this education, or should this be handled by the Ministry of Health? Is there a need for some kind of campaign, or perhaps finally the much-awaited Health Education subject, which I hope all parents will enrol their children in? Is this the place where children should be gaining this knowledge?

Catherine Hernandez
In fact, children should acquire knowledge everywhere. It should start at home from an early age. Because just like we teach a child that when they go out into the street, they need to look to the right, to the left, again, then only then to cross and sort of. And that's really what everyone teaches a child from parents, grandparents, teachers, friends. Everyone around them brings it up. It should be the same with digital education, media education. We all need to make sure that young people are safe online and that they are able to react appropriately, and unless we make this our common goal and our common challenge, it simply won't happen, so it's hard to say that this responsibility should fall on this person and that person, this institution and that institution. And it is only then that by acting together, by acting together, that we are able to achieve success.

Monika Rachtan
If you found our conversation interesting and are looking for more valuable content, subscribe to us on YouTube and Spotify. Monika Rachtan Invite. We're talking about this information that appears online, but we also need to be aware that some of this information, a very large part of it, is untrue. And this is also the kind of information our children come across. So there you have it. Ms Magda, misinformation on the Internet. This phenomenon is becoming more and more popular. Why does anyone put fake news online at all, especially health-related news? Because as far as I remember, health is the third area in which the most fake news appears.

Magdalena Wilczyńska
The third depends on which statistics you look at, because disinformation as a problem has been much more widely discussed socially recently and it seems that more and more people are using the word and in general in the media we are hearing more and more about it. So how is public awareness being raised? Very often, however, in the context of disinformation, we talk about this external threat, we talk about the influence, the interference of foreign countries in our sphere, which also happens in part, but in the case of precisely disinformation in health and content related to pseudo-medicine, for example, very often this content, although it may be externally inspired, is uploaded onto the web by entities that simply monetise this phenomenon, that is, they do it for reasons of financial gain or image gain.

Monika Rachtan
That is to say, we as a society need to be aware that the so-called charlatans on the internet who treat us with magical, magic therapies are only doing it to make money out of us. It's not about saving our health. It's not about developing some new field of medicine, it's just that we have to say to ourselves that if we use something like that, we're stuffing that person's wallet, and it doesn't do anything to improve our health.

Magdalena Wilczyńska
This is very often the case. Of course, it is worth remembering that in part this is a phenomenon. It is this content spread by specific people who monetise it and use it for their own purposes, mainly economic, financial, but around this, because there is social consent, because these people use the so-called authority effect, they claim to be specialists in their field. We start to trust them and usually ordinary citizens, ordinary internet users, and looking at this content, they spread it further as well. Yes. And what's also important about disinformation is that how does it reach us? If fake content reaches us through friends or family, we are much more likely to believe it than if it is an anonymous online account. Of course, it very much depends on the context, on the situation, but this is the danger. It's not just these individuals whose activities are very dangerous, but also how they manipulate the whole public debate.

Monika Rachtan
That's right. Because when we hear from our mum's aunt that she has read something on the internet without telling us the source, well, it's easier for us to absorb such knowledge. And then we also pass it on without checking, and that is simply dangerous. We can even kill someone with such a message, because when I read, for example, that vaccinations should not be given to children for various reasons, I will not even repeat it, because I do not want to quote this information. Or that statins kill. Where in my programme, I don't remember which episode, but Professor Maciej Banach explained in great detail how statins work and why these drugs are safe. However, after that episode of the programme, well, the misinformation that came out in the comments was enormous. Why are people doing this? Do we have such a clear answer, if I am not just talking about income issues vis-à-vis just the individual. But why has such a wave of disinformation appeared on the internet?

Magdalena Wilczyńska
There are several reasons. In general, there is a broader discussion about why we believe in misinformation. Firstly, we talk about cognitive errors, which is precisely the authority effect. We believe ourselves in an apron or a person we recognise as an authority. The confirmation effect, that is, we believe things we have already believed before and such information we do not verify. There are a dozen cognitive errors, which are such mental shortcuts in our head that cause us to believe disinformation more easily and not verify the facts. This is also strongly emotional content, but above all we should remember that in our society actually even since before the COVID pandemic we have a strong so-called anti-trend, actually an anti-scientific trend, That is to say, we increasingly stop believing science, scientists, experts, we are increasingly afraid of Mysiaa to trust institutions, and this is a long-term trend that we are with and slowly, slowly developing in society. Because it's not like anti-vaccine content appeared two years ago. 5 years ago, but now they've become so popular because also the algorithms of social media platforms work in such a way to give us emotional content.

Monika Rachtan
That is to say, they sort of push higher those pieces of information that are likely to evoke particularly negative emotions in us. Ms Katharine, and I'll ask some more about. Not misinformation anymore, but I'll go back to social media. Does your office happen to reflect on this with your spokesperson as well? What other online dangers are lurking for children? Because I see a lot of them. These are various addictions. We know that children are increasingly turning to disposable e-cigarettes, for example, which they can buy online without much control. Here, in terms of the measures that have been promised by this government for years. The previous government, it is in the context of children that they are particularly eagerly awaited.

Catherine Hernandez
In the Office of the Ombudsman for Children. Together with the Ombudsman, we definitely observe and take various actions. The office receives many cases reported by both adults and children. And it is on the basis of these reports that we can diagnose what are the problems, challenges that children face. And by far one of the biggest challenges is precisely the dangers on the Internet, such as access to pathotreatment, which is very violent, negative content, often recorded in real time, that is.

Monika Rachtan
So-called streams.

Catherine Hernandez
Streams that show some kind of violent behaviour towards another person, or in general the promotion of, for example, alcoholism or other stimulants. And children watch this and very often they are not even aware that it is. These are real people. They think it's some kind of recorded content and they are base actors. And the truth is that these are often, almost always people just like us and they are actually victims of violence. That's why the ombudsman as an office has no legislative initiative. But what we can do is to draw the attention of precisely the minister from the government of all concerned to the problems that we see in the so-called general speeches. And this is what we do, and we come forward precisely with the request that we notice such a problem and ask for action to be taken, be it legislative or educational, depending on whom we are appealing to. We also notice a big problem precisely with children accessing such gambling content on the Internet. Content. In general, children have a big problem with restricting their own access to games. Children play and often with the permission of their parents or educators play games. This is often because they do not know how to use them creatively and constructively.

Catherine Hernandez
So there are many problems. However, another very big problem which we have been observing recently is the question of protecting the image of young people on the Internet. Children, parents and guardians report to us that someone has published their picture, a recording of them with their image, without their consent. And this is also the kind of issue that we are now also addressing in the educational campaign that was launched in December. More respect for the young image. Simply so that we as adults, but also children among ourselves, are aware that an image is an asset, a personal image is personal data that should be taken care of, because we never really know where that image will end up one day, because something once published online stays there forever.

Monika Rachtan
But do parents who post pictures of their children, for example? We all have social media accounts, on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. Well, and there it is often the case that we go on holiday together and publish a picture of the happy three of us. Is it abuse on the part of the parent when he or she publishes an image of that child without asking him or her? Well, because the picture, as you said, stays online and you never know what happens to it.

Catherine Hernandez
I mean, it's also the case that social media appeared suddenly, one day, and we all kind of trusted them a little bit too, started using them, and they didn't come with some kind of manual as we should use these new technologies. So well, really, who among us hasn't published a photo of themselves or a photo of someone, right? On social media? Later on, there was a kind of reflection about what happens afterwards, and it was also as if these new threats developed and we saw what, What kind of online behaviour can cause challenges afterwards. Therefore, no, it is not abuse. On the other hand, a parent has the right to use their children's image in accordance with the law. However, we in the Office of the Children's Ombudsman, together with young people, call on parents and teachers to ask young people, because it is their image, and in fact the fact that we formally have all the consents does not mean that the child does not have the right to decide what is really their personal property. And in fact, in the years to come, he will be the one to suffer the consequences of this sharing we have done.

Catherine Hernandez
And this sharing is generally in such good faith. Parents want to boast about some good achievement, a good moment, a holiday, a certificate, a testimonial, for example. But well, it's this question of such subjectivity of the young person. Yes? Because let's teach the child that they have the right to say no. That he or she has the right to decide, because nothing really happens if we, as a parent, don't publish that picture of the happy family. We don't have to do it, and the child just may not want to, which may also be the case. He or she may want to at a given moment, but then he or she may say Mum, look, I wouldn't want to anymore. This photo somehow doesn't suit me anymore right now. Please remove this picture. And it's also such a teaching, just deciding for ourselves, that we listen to the child and delete a photo or some information on the internet at their request.

Magdalena Wilczyńska
I would just like to add that this trend of so-called sharenting also has its extremes, of course, and soon we will actually meet children whose childhoods were streamed on YouTube and only as adults will they probably be able to tell us what this reality was like and how they perceive it. Because it's also worth making the distinction that it's one thing to publish one photo and another thing to actually have this at some point very current trend. Maybe we're moving away from that a bit now. Actually doing live shows and streams of the whole family.

Catherine Hernandez
This is also, I might add, because it's also an issue that we face in the office and it's also sort of the very work of the children of influencers.

Monika Rachtan
Well, that is what I wanted to ask.

Catherine Hernandez
It's often the case that a family's entire life is focused around social media activity, recording, streaming. And this is where we now wonder how this affects the child. Does the child even have the right to refuse and say that he or she does not want to take part in such a live event today because he or she feels unwell or has, I don't know, study, for example, or would rather go to the swimming pool with friends than record some video?

Magdalena Wilczyńska
The household budget is dependent.

Catherine Hernandez
The budget is dependent on this. We also encounter this. We receive reports that, for example, there is a photo with a caption saying that the daughter is ill today, with a fever of 40 degrees, but she is still posing beautifully because a photo shoot of a product has been arranged for today. And this.

Monika Rachtan
This already seems like a big breach to me. I even recently saw such a post on Instagram where a well-known influencer recorded a roll, it's called. She recorded a roll where her sons were talking about the language school they were enrolled in. Well, and there they gave a discount, giving a discount coupon. I was very much wondering about this very thing, whether this is not already some kind of exaggeration, Crossing the line, that if I said that a six-year-old should go sell in a shop, well we would say no, well this is not acceptable. And when a six year old is working on Instagram, for us overall it's not cute.

Catherine Hernandez
Yes, yes. That is why we have also called for this and, in general, discussions are also taking place in the parliament to regulate these issues. No, we're not talking about a ban here, because it doesn't necessarily have to be a ban either, because there are also children who just like it and want it. It's just that it should also be in some kind of standard. And it shouldn't be that what you were saying Magda, that the household budget is dependent on the child recording some kind of material all the time, or that they don't even have the right to a holiday, because often these holidays are also on the basis of barter, where the family goes and gets just this trip in exchange for them reporting non-stop on what a great time they're having. So those are definitely issues. These are big challenges that just a few years ago we didn't talk about at all because, as I say, social media came along and we didn't even know what that would entail in a few years' time. Well, but it is certainly good that we are noticing these issues and want to respond to them.

Catherine Hernandez
And I hope that we will soon be able to take measures that simply make this online environment as safe as possible for young people.

Monika Rachtan
I see there are more and more new people in the room, so I will remind you that this is a patient-first programme. In addition to that, our viewers. They are also watching us live. I would like to welcome those who joined a while ago. I'd like to touch on the topic of social media a little bit more and ask that uncomfortable question. Regulate? Ban it or leave it as it is and let it happen. Because we see it all rushing by and we're losing control of it a little bit. A little bit we don't even have it, because we're not losing it and we don't really know where we're going to be on social media in a week, in a month. There's no plan for it, unless someone has one, but we're unlikely to be informed. And now how do we react? This is where I would also ask about just the issues. Maybe. What measures should the Ministry of Digitalisation take to make children safer online? But not only children, because we adults too. Nobody taught us how to use social media either.

Magdalena Wilczyńska
Probably no simple solution of shutting down the internet will be effective or will be counter-effective, because if we say we are going to ban this or that platform, and there will be another space for this kind of dissemination of content. And in terms of regulation, we already have something at the European Union level. The Digital Services Act well, it has led to some kind of consensus on the removal of illegal content and it has led to some kind of regulation of obligations on these major providers. The biggest platforms related to assessing the risk of distributing harmful content and mitigating that risk. At the moment, however, most of the decisions on how to secure the internet, protect us from this risk and minimise the risk remain in the hands of the platforms, and it is difficult to say whether we do not even have a consensus here at European Union level. We are still waiting for national legislation on DS. Of course. But even DSa was already overdue in some ways, because of the emergence of AI And suddenly at this point the landscape of social media platforms is saturated with artificial content. Not only that harmful or ordinary content, but also AI-generated content, which in principle is difficult to assess, because if we see AI what is the harmfulness of that content, but in some cases it is also used for disinformation, for spreading illegal content also through the use of image.

Monika Rachtan
That is, it is worth being aware of further tools that are emerging.

Magdalena Wilczyńska
They will keep coming. Yes, the state is such a tango. The legislature is always one step behind, to technological solutions.

Monika Rachtan
Can we do something to at least be on an even keel though? because I am no longer saying one step ahead, but we do not want to be behind. We don't have time to be behind, because we are behind.

Magdalena Wilczyńska
In terms of risks. But let's remember that over-regulation also causes certain hindrances when it comes to the development of technology, so it's a very difficult challenge to find that balance, that is, to protect against these risks associated with new technologies while not blocking their development in those spheres that will be useful to society. And it is very difficult indeed. Unfortunately, what this discussion is showing us at the moment is that every time we talk about mitigating another technological challenge, we are not talking about integrating content-related risks at all. I would only add that there are some solutions we can try to introduce, such as taking care of age verification when it comes to accessing social media platforms, for example. Then we won't be thinking about whether to remove this or that or other content. From the child's perspective, we will only be thinking about how to ensure that a child of a certain age only goes on that platform and not at the age of five.

Monika Rachtan
But on the other hand, when, first of all, she can use her parent's phone and also be on that platform.

Magdalena Wilczyńska
But it won't always be as easy or as frequent. I mean it's not going to be 6 hours online every day 4 hours, as the research now shows.

Monika Rachtan
Ms Catherine, your perspective.

Catherine Hernandez
This is what I think, and it resonates, that these legislative actions will always be a step ahead, because they also take a long time, so it is kind of hard, hard, to keep up here. However, this is why education is so important, because if we spread the knowledge that social media platforms are not for small children, they are for children from the age of 13 at the earliest, and then there will not be these situations where a parent gives their phone to a child to use social media, because they will know that the content that can be found there is simply not for them. In the same way that we don't allow children to watch TV after 10pm because the content that can be found there is simply not appropriate. Therefore, education, and not just education of children, but education of society as a whole, parents, teachers, adults, so that they know how to respect this, this accessibility in relation to age, but also, on the other hand, so that a child, if they come across such content, so that, firstly, they are aware that there is such content, and secondly, so that they know how to react, so that they can report to their parents that they have seen something like that, that they can talk about it.

Catherine Hernandez
Because often a child comes across inappropriate content online. Pornography, for example, averages around 9 10 when a child accidentally comes across content.

Monika Rachtan
So is such a child able to cope with this content?

Catherine Hernandez
It is not. This is why it is very important for children to know that they can approach an adult they trust and then simply talk to them, because talking through such situations also helps children a great deal, and also makes it possible to prevent such situations in the future. Therefore, education, health education and media education is something we should take great care of, and we should also make everyone aware that these are measures which are essential at the moment.

Monika Rachtan
You also mentioned these addictions that appear in streams, for example. Can we say that social media is a little bit selling addictions to children as young as nine? Because I for one recall a commercial. She wasn't on social media, I mean she was on social media too, but she was also on TV and she was advertising a popular set in a popular restaurant chain that had 1100 calories, according to the nutritionists. In my opinion this is promoting addiction to such unhealthy food. Yes, if we give such content to children, we know that already children in Poland have a problem with excessive body weight. And when they see someone drinking alcohol on a stream, when they see someone smoking cigarettes on a stream, when they get banners advertising restaurants, well all this content promotes addictions.

Catherine Hernandez
I do not know if there is such a translation, I do not know that. But surely that is why education is so important, so that we can explain to children, firstly, not to allow them to watch such content in a situation where the content is not for them. And secondly, it's exactly this kind of conversation, because if there's an advert on TV, it's as if the child won't get addicted straight away if they see someone offering to go to a restaurant at a great price, because that's what a parent is for, to say listen, we're not going to go to that restaurant because the food is unhealthy, right? And of course occasionally yes, but no, it's not something we can do every day. So it's very important in all of this to have a conversation, the role of the parent, the role of the educator, the role of the teacher who will simply guide this young person in some way through these complexities of the digital world of digital platforms, because without that we simply can't, we won't be able to function. And young people, well, we are also not able to prohibit children from accessing completely social media or the digital environment.

Catherine Hernandez
For social media? Probably yes. The only question is, is that the solution? Because it's a bit like if we took the children to the pier and showed them Well, here's a lake, you can't touch it, but it's like this and but I'm not going to tell you anything about it, because only when you're a certain age will you be thrown into it, into this lake. It cannot be like that. Let us talk. If you have to show. If, if. If there is a situation where we can't into that lake. We don't want to let children under a certain age into the lake. But let's talk. What are the dangers. If you go into that lake, yes. That there are fish there some I don't know, which can be dangerous. You can drown yourself. So let's teach children how to use the web wisely, how to use digital platforms wisely, so that when that age comes, we recognise that it's that age that they can go in, so that they also know how to navigate that, how to swim in that web, because otherwise Well, I'm afraid it's going to be very difficult for them and it's going to be even worse than just introducing the child in this gradual way.

Catherine Hernandez
Accompanying him is also very important. We accompany, let's be next to it, because we often get these reports that my children on YouTube are watching cartoons that are not for them, but YouTube is not for young children, So if we already allow children to watch, let's be next to it yes? And let's change the cartoon. If we see that.

Monika Rachtan
It's us adults who decide, it's us who make the decision and it's that responsibility for us. We can't put it down to the fact that this content is just as if we have a choice and we lead.

Catherine Hernandez
Of course, we can also require platforms to do, I don't know, content labelling so that the content is appropriate. If a child over the age of 13 accesses a platform, then they should not have access to certain content that is inappropriate for them. This is what we can expect. We should expect and also impose regulation on digital platforms. However, there is no substitute for accompanying, educating and simply being with the child along the way, in this digital environment.

Magdalena Wilczyńska
I can only add that, in the context of addictions, it is worth emphasising all the time that the whole mechanisms, the algorithms behind the platforms, they themselves promote addiction to and mechanisms of addiction. That endorphin rush after a short 30-second video we watched. Yes, this is the mechanism that also causes this focus of attention and causes us to absorb information in a different way. At the same time, about this education, which I completely agree with. There's this myth of this generation of digital nomads, this generation that's been online since they were little and should have all the technical skills. Our research shows that these people are not very aware of how algorithms work. They are not aware of how this content is distributed and how to use the internet safely.

Monika Rachtan
That is, they are able to use the Internet in their own way, but not in such a way as to be safe on the Internet. Thank you very much for our conversation today. Ladies and Gentlemen, we all have social media and we should be aware that it is not only a pleasure, but it is also a threat. There is no definitive answer as to what should be done with social media, but I think we ourselves are responsible for how we use it and let's do it responsibly. My guest today was Magdalena Wilczyńska. Thank you very much.

Magdalena Wilczyńska
Thank you.

Monika Rachtan
And Catherine Hernandez. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for your attention. This was the Patient First programme, And I invite you to my social media.