Tomorrow is worldwide Safer Web Day, a world occasion bringing individuals collectively to create a safer web. For the previous six years, Microsoft has taken this chance to advocate for digital civility – treating these we meet on-line with dignity and respect – and launched analysis to assist higher perceive peoples’ on-line experiences. This yr, we’ve advanced our analysis and we’re happy to launch our new International On-line Security Survey 2023: Dad and mom’ and Children’ Perceptions of On-line Security as a part of our contribution to creating the web a safer place to work, play and have interaction with others.
Our 2023 survey discovered that 69% of individuals surveyed had skilled a web based danger within the final yr. The most typical dangers encountered globally had been misinformation and disinformation, and private dangers (together with cyberbullying, hate speech and threats of violence). Respondents within the UK (50%) and Germany (56%) had been least prone to expertise a web based danger, whereas respondents within the Philippines (86%) and Chile (79%) had been most certainly to expertise a web based danger.
Dad and mom underestimate on-line dangers to teenagers in each class
The analysis discovered that teenagers skilled on-line dangers at a better price than mother and father believed: 74% of teenagers reported experiencing a web based danger, whereas 62% of fogeys believed their teen had encountered a danger on-line – a 12-point distinction.
We additionally discovered that oldsters not solely underestimated the dangers – however did so in each class. The most important gaps pertained to hate speech, intently adopted by threats of violence, publicity to suicide and self-harm content material, and cyberbullying and abuse. For instance, 39% of teenagers reported experiencing hate speech on-line whereas solely 29% of fogeys reported their teen having such an expertise. Some 19% of teenagers skilled a risk of violence whereas solely 11% of fogeys reported the identical.
Teenagers additionally fear extra about threats of violence sooner or later than do mother and father.
After experiencing a web based danger 60% of teenagers talked to somebody about it: 71% of these teenagers talked to their mother and father; 32% talked to associates; and 14% talked to a different grownup who wasn’t their mother or father.
Dad and mom use security instruments as a result of they imagine they hold their children safer on-line
Most mother and father report taking motion to maintain their children safer on-line – together with checking their kids’s profiles and posts, receiving exercise reviews and commonly speaking to their kids about their on-line actions. This yr’s analysis confirmed that oldsters usually seen security options as efficient instruments to assist hold their kids protected on-line, and 81% of fogeys report utilizing no less than one. Dad and mom of youthful kids ages 6-12 had been more likely than mother and father of teenagers to make use of platform-based security instruments and used 4.4 instruments in comparison with mother and father of teenagers (3.5). Instruments that enabled mother and father to assessment pal/observe requests (71%) and limits to on-line spending (69%) had been believed by mother and father to be best.
Microsoft’s dedication to digital security
At Microsoft, we now have a longstanding dedication and multifaceted method to baby on-line security and this analysis exhibits us that all of us – tech firms, governments, civil society and households – must proceed to work collectively for a greater web.
We stay dedicated to advancing digital security throughout 4 pillars: platform structure; content material moderation; tradition; collaboration. We all know that security by design is vital to platform structure, in addition to constructing in security options for households. And having clear security insurance policies coupled with constant, proportionate motion to implement these insurance policies is paramount to defending customers. Survey respondents overwhelmingly agree, with 85% anticipating content material moderation for unlawful content material (28%), and unlawful and dangerous content material (57%).
Empowering customers to create protected and inclusive on-line communities allows all to extra absolutely take part in digital environments. That features serving to individuals perceive the dangers they might face on-line and methods by which individuals can shield themselves and their households.
Lastly, multistakeholder collaboration stays essential to tackling the intersection of real-world and digital harms. That’s why we had been proud to affix France’s President Macron and the Childhood On-line Safety Laboratory launched on the Paris Peace Discussion board in November 2022, and why we are going to proceed to work with policymakers and others world wide to form efficient, proportional responses to assist make the web a protected area for everybody.
We perceive that many mother and father are on the lookout for academic assets and steerage to assist them customise the net security experiences for his or her households, and are happy to offer the next:
- Assets | Microsoft On-line Security
- International survey outcomes and ideas for teenagers and oldsters
- Xbox Household Hub
- Useful resource for households to setup a baby account on Xbox and data for households for privateness and security
- Microsoft Household Security
- Empowers households to create wholesome habits and shield them with digital and bodily security steerage and instruments
- Xbox Household Settings App
- Handle kids’s gaming console gaming actions
- Xbox Security Steerage
- Xbox’s evolving method to security, the brand new Privateness Prodigy from Minecraft Schooling, and ideas and instruments that oldsters can use with their households to play on Xbox
We additionally know that gaming could be a useful device for studying, so this Safer Web Day, Minecraft: Schooling Version is releasing an immersive game-based studying journey, Privateness Prodigy, for college kids ages 7-18. Gamers will tackle the problem of defending their information as they enterprise farther from house. They are going to be confronted with eventualities that assist them be taught concerning the private info that may be shared and what needs to be stored personal. Privateness Prodigy is a continuation of the CyberSafe sequence launched final yr with House Candy Hmm, and shall be obtainable without cost for each Minecraft Schooling and within the Market.
Analysis methodology
This analysis was performed utilizing an internet survey of over 16,000 mother and father, teenagers and different adults all through 16 nations.[1] Dad and mom had been requested to reply about their baby’s experiences. All members had been requested questions on their perceptions of life on-line and expertise of 10 completely different dangers, throughout 5 broad danger classes. The next are some key developments from this yr’s analysis – you could find a abstract together with country-specific information right here.
[1] Canada, United States, Mexico, Columbia, Peru, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, India, Philippines, Singapore, Australia. No less than 1,000 interviews had been performed in every nation, together with 500 every amongst teenagers and adults.
