Archive 15th May 2020

Child abuse predators exploit COVID-19 for online abuse

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This is a truly awful story about online abuse, but I thought it was worth raising some awareness of. This article contains two really troubling factors; the first about offenders taking advantage of COVID-19 to abuse children, but it also discusses the awful effects that discovery of an abuser has devastating effects on the spouse (and the rest of the family of course).

This highlights the importance of online safety in combating online abuse and how some many parties have a part to play in the solution to this.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/14/child-abuse-predator-handbook-lists-ways-to-target-children-during-coronavirus-lockdown

Picture of a child sitting down using their phone
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/14/child-abuse-predator-handbook-lists-ways-to-target-children-during-coronavirus-lockdown

Sadly this is only one of many online harms, but it’s one of the largest and one that causes the most pain.

The issue of the impacts causes on the rest of the family is seldom discussed, but worth being aware of. Thankfully there are some charities that support those left in the wake, and the article highlights PartnerSpeak but in the UK we see organisations like Mothers of Sexually Abused Children (MOSAC) amongst others.

Thanks go to the Australian eSafety Commissioner’s Office for the work highlighting this.

[Newsletter Archives] – Newsletter – 30/04/2020 – Great Advice If You Have Young People Online

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Hi << Test First Name >>

Advice for parents, guardians and carers of young people online during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The ever brilliant Australian eSafety Office has released a well put together guide here:

https://www.esafety.gov.au/key-issues/covid-19/advice-parents-carers

It covers the following:

As they say:

Staying connected online has never been more important, now that many of us are physically isolated from family members, friends, colleagues and support networks.The internet is a great way to socialise, learn, work, play and be entertained. But there are also risks.So eSafety is adding new content every day to help you stay safe online

We highly recommend heading over there and checking it out.

Keep in touch.
Matt

[Newsletter Archives] Newsletter – 24/02/2020 – 3 Quick Tips For Online Safety

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Hi << Test First Name >>

3 Quick Tips to make your Service Safer for your users.


You don’t have the time to be wading through reams and reams of government-issued documentation and guidance, about Online Safety for your users, so today I’ve picked just a few tips for you to pique your interest. I’d be keen to hear back (just hit ‘reply’, or comment on the blog post version of this) to let me know what you’ like to hear more about, and I’ll make it happen….

1. Content moderation

Pre, Post or Reactive?If you’ve not engaged with a Content Moderation service for online safety yet, then you may have thought you just ‘plug it in’ and it happens. Well…. You have to make some choices I’m afraid. Here are some of the basic strategies available to you:
Pre-Moderation. This is effectively where the content from Users (for example User Generated Content (UGC)) is placed in a queue and your moderation service (automated or human) forms an opinion before it gets published.
Post-Moderation. As you may have already guessed – This allows content from your users to be published immediately (giving that warm glow of achievement of having ‘gone live’) – but the content is replicated in a queue to be moderated as soon as it can be got to.
Reactive Moderation. This effectively lets the community (or (and this is not good) Law Enforcement!) report content to be moderated. This can then be plugged into your automated, semi-automated or Human moderation team.

IWF Make a Report Link

If your users are in the UK, they can make a report of images or videos of Child Abuse they come across directly to the IWF. You can link to the ‘Make a Report Button’ (https://report.iwf.org.uk/en/report) for an easy option for your users.

Default Settings

If you operate in the UK, you are now required to make sure that your service has it’s ‘Default Settings’ to be ‘High Privacy’ (unless you can demonstrate a compelling reason for a different default setting, taking account of the best interests of the child). This is in the new ICO Age Appropriate Design code (coming into force soon) and they will have the power to fine companies that do not comply!

Hope those tiny-tips offer some pointers, but please do reply and let me know if you have other ideas.

Best

Keep in touch.
Matt

[Newsletter Archives] Newsflash – 17/02/2020 – OHWP Update

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Hi <<First Name>

UK Online Harms ‘Regulation’ – Update publishedIf you’ve been following the UK’s government-led consultation into how it should handle legislation that will reduce Online Harms, then you’ll be interested to know this.

There’s been a release of new information; an update that contains the summarised responses. Worthy of note:
 In particular, while the risk-based and proportionate approach proposed by the White Paper was positively received by those we consulted with, written responses and our engagement highlighted questions over a number of areas, including freedom of expression and the businesses in scope of the duty of care. Having carefully considered the information gained during this process, we have made a number of developments to our policies. These are clarified in the ‘Our Response’ section below. Keep in touch.
Matt