Warning to North Yorkshire parents to talk to children about internet safety
With schools broken up for the Summer young people will be spending more time online
As millions of children begin their summer holidays and are likely to spend more time online, new research reveals parents and carers have significant concerns about the threat artificial intelligence poses to their children.
Three quarters (75%) of parents say they’re worried about the dangers of AI-generated deepfake audio and video, and more than a third (36%) consider them to be more of a threat than cyberbullying, hate speech and violent content.
More than a quarter (26%) of parents and guardians say they aren’t confident in protecting their children from deepfakes or other AI risks, with almost a fifth (19%) noting they ‘don’t know’ what deepfakes are, and 24% unsure of the potential threat deep fakes pose to their children.
Almost half (45%) don’t know how to update privacy settings on social media, and a further half (50%) are unable to change passwords to protect their children's safety online.
Of the threats posed by AI and deep fakes, 59% parents were worried that fake images or content would be used to bully their children, with 59% saying they’re concerned their children will be traumatised due to fake images of gore, violence or sexual content.
But less than half of parents (42%) speak to their children about how to stay safe online, with almost a third (29%) saying it’s because their kids know more about technology than they do. Almost half (48%) said they want more support to keep their kids safe online.
In response, Virgin Media O2 and Internet Matters are launching the Find the Right Words campaign to help parents and guardians talk to their children about online safety. It aims to empower parents so they can navigate difficult conversations about online safety and educate themselves about online threats.
At the heart of the campaign is a powerful film highlighting the difficulty parents face in explaining online risks to their children. The short-form film follows the lives of Anika, who appears to be 17-year-old and her mum, Shanti, who are impacted by online harms. The film’s message is that it’s never too early to talk to children about online safety.
'It could have been absolutely horrific'
Jen lives near Whitby and says it's vital to have a conversation with your children about what is and isn't acceptable behaviour online.
It's after her son was accused of bullying after putting messages on a group chat:
"It kind of went from what he thought was banter into more of bullying, as Mums we sort of all chat to each other anyway so it was raised with me really quickly but it could have been absolutely horrific. He just didn't see that it was hurtful."
"It was on a group messaging, I wasn't checking his phone all the time. I knew who he chatted to, he had parental controls on so you kind of think, I work in tech, I know these kind of things so it's going to be fine."
"It was awful, it was the mixture of guilt, shame, thinking I was such a really bad parent for my child being the bully, when actually he is a really good kid and he would never say anything to hurt anyone intentionally."