Youth Net Safety Countermeasures 2.0

　A task force committed to supporting the safety and peace of mind of young people on the internet.

Is being debated in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

And I am serving as chairman.

　

  It has been 8 years since EMA, a content filtering agency, and 7 years since the platform “Japan Internet Safety Promotion Association (JISPA)” (a joint effort by industry, academia, and the government), were established as safety countermeasures for young people on the internet.

　After that, for a time there was a temporary sense of relief, but immediately after that the internet underwent a complete change from the perspective of  children on the internet. Cell phones changed into smartphones, content turned to social networking, and the web became an application. And there are even newer problems coming to the fore.

　At the same time, the government wants all children to study on tablets by 2020. In other words, their stance changed from saying, “Don’t use them!” to “Use them!”

We also were involved in advancing this movement. Conversely, there is the issue of promoting this agenda.

  At the beginning of the safety task force, there was an explanation from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

・94% of high schoolers, and 46% of middle schoolers have smartphones.

・Filtering is on 65% of cell phones, and 45% of smartphones.

　There were many perspectives from the committee members.

1) Some examples of things that were pointed out are, education is the most important counter measure in literacy, more so than the children there are bigger problems with their guardians, as well as the matter of how to deal with people who are not very knowledgeable. There were especially strong opinions concerning the responsiveness in the classroom.

2) There were several people who expressed the desire to improve filtering, because they felt that the settings are too complicated and hard to understand. A sales agent reported that “It takes 15 minutes just to explain filtering to a customer, so in total it would take 2 hours to explain everything.” That certainly is a pain, even the customers would get sick of it.

   However, in order to improve the filtering, it would be necessary to correspond with an OS business (like Apple or Google). But for just one country to demand an improvement is probably not enough. This is the most troubling aspect of this matter.

3) Well, based on countermeasures for literacy and filtering, it would be necessary to readdress the question of what kind of organization we should pursue, but this is a difficult question to answer. The number of shareholders and stakeholders in youth net countermeasures is very high.

　

  Including, third party agencies like EMA and Japan Internet Safety Promotion Association (JISPA). Providers such as communication carriers, manufacturers, distributors, SNS, and OS business. Users such as guardians and schools. Government and the Cabinet Office, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Economy, Consumer Agency, National Police Agency will also be concerned. And each local government.

  This is a countermeasure that involves hardware and software, and is a global problem, this is a cost sector that does not yield much benefit when you act independently. The public benefit for businesses is also high. That being said, how do we redesign it? I will collect more wisdom from everyone and get back to you.