Digital content is dangerous for our children

TALI FEINBERG

A lawyer by profession, Sadleir has written extensively and spoken to schoolchildren across the country about the dangers of social media – and her expertise is endlessly in demand.

She was presenting a talk titled “Parenting the Screenager” to a large audience of parents and teenagers at Herzlia Middle School in Cape Town, and opened it with some hard and fast facts. In her opinion, smartphones should be banned for children under the age of 13. All social media accounts should be set to private. No child should be allowed a smartphone next to their bed at night – it is leading to a sleeplessness epidemic and major social crises.

Children as young as 10 can be arrested for criminal capacity, and they can be sued at age 7. At age 14, they can be charged as an adult. She has seen all this happen as a “first responder” for when things go wrong on social media.

And things do go awry. In a series of harrowing examples, she showed how children, teens and their parents have found themselves on the wrong side of the law thanks to the powerful device in their hands.

For example, a Dutch girl sent a “joke tweet” threatening terrorist activity to a United States airline and is now being charged with terrorism. In the US, a teenager encouraged her boyfriend in an online message to commit suicide and is now being held legally responsible for his death.

A group of students about to start at Harvard had all their offers at the university rescinded because they were part of a racist meme group on WhatsApp.

In South Africa, a teen created a joke photo of his school headmaster and deputy headmaster in the nude. The latter sued him for defamation. A Port Elizabeth pupil was stripped of being a prefect because of photos on social media of him drinking – which was in conflict with a contract he had signed with the school.

An ex-wife sued her ex-husband for damages, because he was tagged in a defamatory Facebook post by his new wife – and he did not remove the tag. A teen girl was suspended from school for being part of a WhatsApp group bullying other girls – because even though she did not take part in the bullying, she did not stop it.

A celebrity tormented another woman on social media and received a criminal record. A child sent a racist voice note and her mother was fired from her job. A parent created a racist Facebook post and the child was expelled from school.

All these examples show that the digital world is the real world, and vice versa. If children are taking part in cyberbullying, sexting, catfishing (pretending to be someone other than who they are), or reputational harm, they could face very real consequences. They can also be the victims of these actions.

Sadleir says this generation doesn’t understand that “there is no such thing as a free lunch”. Social media may be free, but, essentially, these platforms “own us”. Most have the rights to use, sell, redistribute, broadcast, exhibit, publish, and store the content uploaded. And because it is free, and no one is forcing anyone to take part, there is not much one can do if unhappy with the outcome.

Privacy only exists if one guards it jealously. Because of the screenshot, even a private WhatsApp conversation can be shared widely. Because of the cloud, even private photos can be hacked and distributed. And even “temporary” content like Instagram Stories and Snapchat photos are stored by the apps that host them.

Meanwhile, everyone has become paparazzi, uploading photos of family and friends without their consent. “We need to teach our children from very young that they have a right to say they do not want to be filmed or photographed,” says Sadleir. This includes parents who share every moment of their children’s lives online – which may come back to haunt them and their kids as they get older.

In this new world, children will be googled before they apply for a position at university or a job. Sadleir advises parents to set up a Google Alert of both their and their children’s names, and work hard on keeping their digital footprint clean. “The ‘tattoo effect’ of the internet is that once we have a ‘digital shadow’, it is there forever,” says Sadleir.

She believes apps that allow people to remain anonymous should be illegal. “Anonymity on the internet is the root of all evil,” she says emphatically. If one’s child is using an app like Q-me, she advises they get off it immediately.

In the same vein, children must know who follows them on Instagram, and their account should be private. “They need to understand that being popular on Instagram is like being rich in Monopoly. It’s not real. And it’s not worth compromising safety for another ‘like’,” says Sadleir.

But all is not lost. Social media means people have the power to call out others for bullying – they actually have a duty to stand up to it online, otherwise they may be complicit. The screenshot allows users to record instances of bullying, and connecting with others online offers huge resources of support.

Parents can also sign contracts with their children regarding the use of their smartphones. At the same time, Sadleir advises giving a child “immunity” if something goes seriously wrong so that one can help the child in that moment.

But ultimately, do not wait until things go wrong. Sadleir says it is parents’ duty to understand every app, website or game, and monitor them closely. People need to guard their privacy fiercely and know that everyone can be a publisher.

Locations and identity details must be kept off the internet, in case of identity theft. Parents need to teach their daughters to use the hard and fast “no” if they are being asked to share photos of their bodies. Their sons must know that such requests can lead to formal charges of harassment. Children need to be able to detect a scam that could solicit them to share personal photos or details.

And everybody needs to know the billboard test: if one would not put a photo, comment or video on a huge billboard signed with one’s name and personal details, do not put it on social media. Because tomorrow, it could appear on that billboard.