Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR JOHN
CARR, MR
STEPHEN CARRICK-DAVIES
AND PROFESSOR
SONIA LIVINGSTONE
26 FEBRUARY 2008
Q1 Chairman: Good morning. This is the
first session of the Committee's inquiry into harmful content
on the Internet and in video games. Our inquiry is running roughly
in parallel, perhaps a little behind that of Dr Tanya Byron; although
we will be looking at similar ground, we will in due course be
hearing from her as well. I would like to welcome to this, our
first session, John Carr of the Children's Charities Coalition
for Internet Safety; Professor Sonia Livingstone of the LSE; and
Stephen Carrick-Davies of Childnet International. Perhaps as an
opening question, I could ask you whether or not you think that
the considerable media coverage of the dangers and negative aspects
of online content and in video games is perhaps being exaggerated
to the extent that we are overlooking the positive aspects to
young people from potentially games and the Internet.
Professor Livingstone: I do not
think we are overlooking the benefits, I think there are many
initiatives going on, many ways in which people are gaining access
to the Internet, both at schools and at home, precisely because
they are very confident of the benefits of the Internet, but at
the same time, there is a context of anxiety, partly led by media
panics, partly led by some of the experiences that people are
having with the Internet, which is leading perhaps to an overemphasis
on the risks online by comparison with some of the other possible
causes of dangers or ill-effects in everyday life. So sometimes
the media get blamed for all kinds of ills which they are not
solely responsible for. But I think people are very clear that
this is primarily a fantastically beneficial medium that they
want to give their children as free access to as they possibly
can.
Q2 Chairman: When you say media panics,
do you think that the media is exaggerating, is there a certain
degree of hysteria creeping in?
Professor Livingstone: I think
there is some hysteria, and sometimes that makes us overfocus
on the risks that the media pose, rather than some of the other
problems in children's lives, let us say, which are also part
of the reasons for the troubles they face.
Mr Carr: We need to be clear,
the media do not make it up; the cases that we hear about and
read about are things that have happened in our criminal courts,
that have been reported on accurately, but the headlines do not
always follow the line of the story. I would hate us to think
that, in a sense, we have no need to worry about anything. The
fact that the media occasionally overdo it with the odd headline
should not blind us to the fact that there are genuine risks and
perils out there.
Mr Carrick-Davies: Two comments
on benefits. First, I think I would recognise that the vast majority
of users still embrace the technology, we see that just from the
point of view of take-up. The overwhelming experience of children
and young people is broadly positive, creative, engaging, they
can do so many things with this new technology. The educational
argument is there; we have seen where technology has been properly
embedded within learning environments, and that is an important
caveat, that we are seeing great improvements in attainment, to
say nothing of the tremendous motivation that technology brings,
and the opportunity for children to create their own learning
environments. But clearly, when there are areas of risk, and there
are very real areas of risk, some of that is communicated because
of the case study, because of the individual child that has been
hurt, and that stirs up enormous emotions. Parents can very easily
be given the message that all is not well, and I think the challenge
is that we have to contextualise the risks in the wider experience
of children using the technology. We recognise that the vast majority
of abuse takes place with children in contact with people that
they know, not online. But the media, understandably, will draw
out issues of risk, and as John said, they are not making it up.
We know from our experience at Childnet that 22% of young people
report to have been cyber-bullied. There is no way you can argue
about that, one in five children will say through research that
their experience of peer abuse is very real, but I conclude by
saying that most people accept that there is an element of risk,
and it is probably impossible to fully prevent children from being
exposed to potential risk, as it is in real life. So there needs
to be a mature debate about how these risks are portrayed, and
what is the real baseline and experience that children have online.
Q3 Chairman: Can I ask you specifically
also about video games? We have focused and will continue to focus
on the online threat, particularly from individuals who may use
the ability to contact people through the Internet for harmful
purposes, but games as a separate category: first of all, do you
think there is a problem with games; and secondly, do you accept
the argument from the industry that games too have benefits, educationally
and developmentally?
Professor Livingstone: I think
there is a question about the evidence for both of those claims.
There is not terrifically good evidence that playing video games
benefits children, in terms of educational or social benefits,
and there is perhaps equally contested evidence that video games
can harm children if they play them. So there is quite a body
of evidence, particularly in the States, of the ways in which
particularly playing violent video games repeatedly may have harmful
effects, particularly for some children, particularly for some
boys, but there will continue to be debates, both about the possible
benefits and about whether playing those games has harmful effects
outside the situation of playing the game, as it were.
Mr Carr: This is a problem that
we come up against repeatedly when dealing with these types of
questions. The fact that there is not necessarily any concrete
evidence of harm does not mean that there is not any harm. You
would not get through any decent ethics committee of any academic
institution a proposition to allow you, for example, to subject
a group of children to a constant barrage of violent images or
violent games or whatever, as against a control group of other
children who were not subjected to those games, simply to see
what the outcome was in relation to both of those groups. Ethically,
you simply could not do that. So you have to, to some degree or
another, use some common sense when you think about these things,
because you will never get absolutely cast-iron, empirically solid
evidence, I do not think, to support the proposition either way.
One of the aspects in relation to games, however, that is of concern,
irrespective of the level of violence or pornography or whatever
it might be that the game itself might contain, is the overuse.
Certainly in some countries, we have had cases reported of children
dying at the console of exhaustion; not a very common phenomenon,
thankfully, but nonetheless, it is there. This has led some governments,
for example, to consider requiring or asking the games industry
to try to make sure that all of the high-scoring bits of a game
occur early on in the game. So there is a disincentive, the law
of diminishing returns sets in, so the longer the child stays
on the game, stays on the console or whatever, there are fewer
scoring opportunities or fewer opportunities to get a new weapon,
or whatever it might be that the game is about. So there are other
concerns around games than simply the exposure to violent images
or pornography; this issue of overuse and extended use, replacing
a social life, whatever you want to call it, getting out and playing
football or whatever, is also then part of the equation too.
Mr Carrick-Davies: I would just
add to that, and first of all say I think it is excellent that
the Committee is looking at this issue of gaming, because what
we are seeing is this multi-user aspect, children are not just
playing solitarily on their own, or with their brother or sister
in a closed environment, they are actually communicating to often
strangers, and of course, there is a very obvious interest that
adults and children may have in one game. So I think that is an
important point to note. I echo Sonia's point that we need to
have greater evidence of harm, and also the educational benefits;
the question was, what are the benefits, and we know that children
derive enormous pleasure from playing games. It improves their
confidence, their sense of social standing, their ability to multi-task,
their ability to receive conflicting bits of information and education.
It does strengthen the informal learning that takes place in this
environment. But I think it is really important that the Committee
reviews this, that you talk to the industry about how they are
standardising the advice for parents. Our experience at Childnet
is that parents are very easily confused. It is not helpful to
see two different types of ratings system in this country at the
moment, both have their strengths and weaknesses. There needs
to be greater standardisation, there needs to be greater educational
awareness about what games are actually about, so it is an important
area.
Professor Livingstone: There does
seem to be an issue particularly within homes about children playing
games which, when they have been rated, are rated as much higher
than their age. There seems to be a kind of casualness within
the home or a difficulty for parents to regulate this which means
that many children are playing games with a much higher age rating.
Mr Carr: Some parents seem to
think that if a game is 18, and they think Little Johnny is Einstein,
that he must be able to handle an 18, it is proof that Little
Johnny is Einstein. In fact, the 18 rating is about the content
and nature of the game, it is not a skill level, and that could
be made clearer very often.
Chairman: Perhaps on this question of
harmful content, I will move to Rosemary McKenna.
Q4 Rosemary McKenna: Thank you very
much. Just to comment, though, I think some parents have exactly
the same attitude to film and video, DVD, so it does not only
apply to the Internet. Can we move on to what could be potentially
harmful content? In some cases, it is pretty straightforward to
decide which content is harmful and what action should be taken,
for example, child abuse, but for other content, it is much more
difficult to decide what is appropriate. How and where should
the boundaries be drawn for content, where the level of harm is
a subjective issue?
Mr Carrick-Davies: Could I kick
off on this, colleagues? I think it is a very difficult question,
is it not, where do you draw the line? The industry can very clearly
say that if it is illegal, they will not host it, or they will
not access it, but whether it is harmful, as you say, is a very
subjective issue. Three points of challenges here: first of all,
the challenge is that children may be harmed by things on the
Internet that are not necessarily perceived as traditionally harmful
or illegal. Secondly, with this Web 2.0 world, which is the phrase
that illustrates the user-generated content, there is a real blur
between the consumer and the creator, and therefore, it is very,
very easy for children themselves to upload content or images
themselves which can be harmful. This is such a challenging issue.
We often see children as passive victims, but actually, the work
we have been doing is that this medium, although it is neutral,
gives children an enormous ability to amplify inappropriate, harmful,
spiteful, devastating comments. The third thing, this is why it
is so challenging about where do you draw the line, is that it
is a global medium, you will appreciate that it is continually
evolving, that it is subjective for parents, even for parents
with children of a certain age group, they may be affected by
some things which other children in that same age group will not
be. I think we need to recognise that there is this grey; there
is black and white, but there is also this grey, and how do we
respond? I would argue that there are going to be three huge players
who need to be involved in this. Clearly industry need to have
responsibility, and I am sure in this debate we will talk about
the opportunity of media literacy and greater better by design
opportunities that industry have, but there is obviously an issue
of empowering, supporting and educating children, such an important
part of the work of schools, and clearly the role and responsibility
and the care for parents to empower them, to give them confidence
to talk to children, so that children are equipped, just in the
same way that they are equipped when they walk down the High Street,
to recognise harm, to respond to harm, to overcome harm.
Mr Carr: Can I just say, very
briefly, on this: if it is illegal, it is clear-cut, it should
not be there. Certainly within the UK, in relation to child abuse
images, for example, the industry has done an absolutely fantastic
job in screening that out. If it is not illegal, then there is
no basis on which Government or police or anybody can ask the
industry to intervene, because the industry are not moral arbiters,
they are not priests, they have no locus, any more than you or
I have, to say to a particular family, or a particular child,
"This is good for you or bad for you". What happens
in reality is within a school, for example, the headteacher sets
the policy within the school, or the individual subject teachers,
so they collectively decide what is acceptable in terms of internet
content that children can access or use within that school. I
am afraid it is and ought to be the same within the home. What
is acceptable for liberal lefties living in Hampstead will be
very different from—I am going to be very careful what I
say next: for other types of people, shall we say. There is no
way that you can legislate from the centre, or an Internet service
provider can legislate from the centre and get that right. There
are software packages around, there are programs around, filtering
packages and so on, that each family can use to match their own
particular social, moral, religious, cultural values, and I think
sadly it is as complicated as that.
Professor Livingstone: I would
start from a different starting point: I do not know what it is
possible for you to say to the industry, or what possible regulations
might be put in place, but if I think of research on parents and
on children, their starting point is often the environment of
television, where there has been a very carefully regulated environment.
So with television, parents and children have a very clear understanding
of what the norms are, what the expectations are, what can and
cannot be said, at what point they might complain, and to whom,
how they manage what children of different ages would have access
to, and it is an environment in which we can say that there is
a good relationship between regulation, self-regulation and media
literacy or parental management. When it comes to the Internet,
the content that I think really worries people, and that children
say can upset them, and we have figures of 10-15% of children
and young people say they have been upset or distressed by something
they have seen online, sometimes that is about access to extreme
content of various kinds, but very often the point is that that
was access which was unexpected, accidental, without any framework
of mediation, without any warning, and content that for them is
not, as it were, justified within the frame of the material itself,
or for which there was any warning. While I take John's point
that in the home, there are many tools available for filtering
and monitoring and so forth that parents can implement, the struggles
that parents have, and the research shows parents have to implement
this, and we have to say the inequalities, it is very often more
middle class parents who are more equipped and able and motivated
to implement some of those facilities, the result is that many
children are continuing to come up against accidentally upsetting,
inappropriate and on occasion harmful content.
Q5 Rosemary McKenna: To what extent
is user-generated content that encourages violence harmful?
Professor Livingstone: We do not
have good evidence on that specific question, but what we can
say is that there is evidence that material which, let us say,
is outside one's expectations, outside one's norms of what you
expect to see, is often shocking. It can be part of setting norms
about what is acceptable behaviour, so if you see certain kinds
of, let us say, cyber-bullying on YouTube, if you see that kind
of content routinely, it might set a different norm of what is
acceptable in a different situation in the playground. There is
something, I think, to be said, and a lesson from television about
the impact of repeated images, of seeing over and over certain
content on television, we did not only worry and try to keep off
certain kinds of extreme violence, but we have also worried about
the repetitive effect of violent images over and over, and I think
on the Internet we have not begun to think about that at all.
We have only really thought about the extreme content.
Mr Carrick-Davies: If I may just
add another comment on that, it is very important to reflect on
the differences between harm in the offline world that children
could exert against each other to that which is online, because
of the 24/7 nature of this, that it is hard for a child to actually
escape from the bully, they cannot have the sanctuary of the home.
The very fact that there is a lack of closure, that if something
has been put up on a social networking site, or has been circulated
to vast numbers, is very challenging for the child to ever think
that has been removed, it will always be up there in space. The
other classic point, we do need to watch very, very carefully,
and schools tell us this, is the bystander effect, that children
will actually see, as Sonia alluded to a little bit, that this
becomes the norm, they then get involved in it, and see it as
a prank, or as a joke, or as just a bit of fun, rather than the
devastating pain that it causes. The Government, the DCSF has
done some very good work on giving advice for schools on cyber-bullying,
one of the messages is that those bystanders, if they laugh at
it, they are very much a part of it. So I think we cannot see
the issue of harmful content without the context of the peer group.
Q6 Rosemary McKenna: On these social
networking sites, to what extent does content that displays personal
information lead to harm on social networking sites? For example,
I have heard of young families who refuse to put their children's
photographs on social networking sites. Is that a reasonable thing
to do?
Mr Carrick-Davies: That would
be dependent on, as John said earlier, the morals and norms and
values of the family. I think there is a real danger that children
do not appreciate that a photograph that they do put up on there
can be online forever. One of the messages that we say is: would
you want your future employer to see that photograph that was
taken at a party in a compromising position? One of the challenges—
Q7 Rosemary McKenna: I do not mean
that, I mean just normal families, exchanging photographs across
the social networking sites, I have heard of people who are concerned
about doing that, because of what could happen, the abuse of that
photograph.
Professor Livingstone: I think
the issue there is about the kind of privacy controls that are
provided for those sites. So if we imagine your family wanting
to put up family photographs, they can set it to private and control
who gets access to those photographs.
Q8 Rosemary McKenna: Do you think
that is robust enough?
Professor Livingstone: I think
very often people are confused about how those controls work,
they are not very subtle, so pretty much you either give people
access or you do not. There is some evidence that people do not
understand or do not take very seriously what those decisions
are, partly because they are not aware of possible abuses of that
information. So I think there can be more done there, both in
making people aware of the possible risks but also in making those
controls more tailored to the particular needs of those who use
them.
Mr Carr: The point you raise goes
a lot wider than, if you like, the traditional—traditional
is perhaps not the right word, but the worries around paedophiles
getting access to information and tracking down a child. I was
horrified a few weeks ago when I read, for example, the admissions
tutor of one of our older universities acknowledging that he had
been trawling some of these social networking sites, looking for
information about people who had applied to his college. By the
way, he was subsequently rapped over the knuckles, very publicly,
I am happy to say. But there is an anxiety around it, certainly
in the Children's Charities field, about the fact that colleges,
or more pointedly, perhaps, employers, might be looking at these
sorts of sites, and seeing, you know, some 17-year-old kid doing
something that 17-year-old boys or girls do, and that being then
seen by a potential employer or a potential university admissions
tutor, and weighing in the balance when they are deciding whether
or not to offer the person a job or an interview or a place at
university. I think that is shocking, I think it is outrageous,
it is not illegal, but I hope it soon will be, and certainly we
intend to take this up as a campaigning point. We do tell children
and advise their parents and so on not to put things of that kind
on the Internet, but they do, that is what kids do. They should
not, however, suffer potentially a lifelong penalty from not getting
into their preferred university to do their preferred course,
not getting the job or the job interview, because people use that
information in a different way from that for which it was intended.
It is certainly something that you may be hearing from us on in
the near future.
Q9 Chairman: How do you make it illegal?
Mr Carr: In the same way that
we have anti-discrimination laws about what you may or may not
take into account when you are offering somebody a job. The point
about these pictures and these sorts of things that you sometimes
see on the websites is you can never possibly have the full context
in which the particular photograph—
Q10 Mr Sanders: How many cases are
you aware of, of people who have not got university places or
have not got jobs as a result of this?
Mr Carr: There was the case in
the newspapers that was reported, I think it was three or four
weeks ago, and anecdotally we have had parents and others—there
is no hard evidence.
Q11 Mr Sanders: So there is one case
in the paper.
Mr Carr: Yes, a few weeks ago.
Q12 Mr Sanders: Was it proven beyond
all reasonable doubt, that they—
Mr Carr: He had acknowledged that
he had made a mistake, and he promised not to do it again.
Q13 Mr Sanders: The employer?
Mr Carr: The admissions tutor.
I will send you the press cutting.
Q14 Mr Sanders: So we have one case.
What we are discussing here is real harm to children, not one
case of somebody who might not have got into a university because
of something—
Mr Carr: That would be a real
harm to that child.
Q15 Mr Sanders: Maybe it would have
been real harm, but what we are concerned about is the much more
general issue, we seem to be going down what I think are side
roads of things of predicting what might happen when there is
no real hard evidence for it at all.
Mr Carr: Well, there was in that
one case, and there are certainly anxieties and fears that it
is happening on a wider scale, and it should not, that is all.
I do not want to labour the point.
Q16 Mr Sanders: But you could not
enforce the rule anyway, could you?
Mr Carr: No, but what you could
do, and I would expect responsible employers to say to their personnel
management, or their personnel staff, their recruiters, and responsible
universities to say to their admissions tutors, "Do not do
it, it is not allowed".
Q17 Mr Sanders: But you cannot enforce
it.
Mr Carr: You can say that about
almost any law really.
Q18 Mr Sanders: I am sorry, but—
Mr Carr: It is all about getting
the evidence, is it not? I agree, it is not a major—we ought
not to be detained by it. I apologise if I have introduced a red
herring.
Q19 Adam Price: Can I take us down
a different side route or path? Professor Livingstone, you made
the analogy between the kind of regulation and self-regulation
that we have, for instance, in the broadcasting world, or even
in the press, and indeed, Hugo Swire has recently made a proposal
for creating some kind of, I suppose, Internet standards body.
Do you see any merit in creating some kind of, I do not know,
umbrella organisation which would regulate or self-regulate content
on the Internet?
Professor Livingstone: Well, this
is a huge issue. Perhaps I can start somewhere slightly different,
in that it is my understanding that all kinds of self-regulation
of online content goes on in various ways already. Internet service
providers, content providers respond to complaints from individual
consumers: they take down upsetting user-generated content from
YouTube, if somebody makes a complaint to that end; they are aware
of content that might damage brands or contravene copyright or
whatever. So I would not make the starting point that online content
is not being regulated, should we have a body to do so? I would
rather say there is all kinds of activity going on that does already
do some kind of regulation; is the public aware of it, does it
know that they could complain, do they know that there are other—they
do not read their terms and conditions, they do not read their
privacy policies, we know that. Is there some way in which that
process could be more co-ordinated, more accountable to the public,
made more transparent? Would people have a right of appeal if
they disagreed with a decision made in terms of content? I would
think about those kinds of principles and say that there is more
that could be done than is currently being done. Whether that
is best wrapped up as one new body, or whether this is a way of
extending Ofcom's remit, that is not my expertise. What I can
see is that the public understands very well how all kinds of
traditional content are being regulated, they understand how television
is differently regulated from the press, they understand that
even the advertising that appears on their child's bus stop is
regulated. They are simply bemused and upset that they cannot
see and they do not understand that anything like this happens
online, and at the same time, to go back to the benefits, they
have very clearly grasped the message that they must and should
get their child online and give them broadband access, to help
with their education and so forth.
Mr Carrick-Davies: Could I echo
just one of those points? I think it is right that the Internet
is not some moral vacuum, that there are very good existing laws
for some of the providers who work in the online and offline space,
from the point of view of advertising, for example, that they
need to adhere to. At Childnet, we would really be very cautious
about imposing new stringent regulation or the creation of any
new regulations in this space because of the fact that there are
unintended consequences of that. The very fact that you can restrict
freedom of expression, which is such a valuable plus of the Internet,
giving children an enormous voice, an enormous opportunity to
communicate, to say nothing of the increasing costs of paying
for this monitoring, the fact that less scrupulous providers may
come into this space, it is a global medium, but that does not
mean that we just say, okay, we just have to cope with this laissez
faire. There are very important things we can be doing in terms
of identifying what is working, drawing out best practice, monitoring
the way that that best practice is actually being embedded and
being rolled out. There is a real duty on governments to keep
up to date with the statute book, and make sure that there are
not gaps, and we need to often play catch-up. There is such a
need to develop a kind of international co-ordination of this.
This is a real leadership issue, ultimately, for the G8 or other
international bodies, including the Internet Governance Forum,
which we should be recognising is now really taking mainstream
and looking at issues of access, security, openness and diversity.
So I think my wish for this Committee would be to identify what
is working well, and to make sure that we really prioritise the
strengthening of existing multi-stakeholder initiatives, so we
can actually ensure that there is a good safety net in this environment.
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