A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
As more than 175,000 children go online for the first time every day – a new child every half second – UNICEF, the UN Children’s Agency, warned today that digital access means they are exposed not only to a wealth of benefits and opportunities, but also to a host of risks and harms. These risks [...]
A children's charity has criticised the UK government for failing to implement proposals to make young people safer online - 10 years after they were made in a government-commissioned report. The NSPCC says 11 of the 38 proposals were ignored and seven were partially implemented - four are now out of date. It says a [...]
A COALITION OF 97 child health advocates sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday asking him to discontinue Messenger Kids, a new advertising-free Facebook app targeted at 6-to-12-year olds. Advocates say the app likely will undermine healthy childhood development for preschool and elementary-school-aged kids by increasing the amount of time they spend with digital devices. The letter to [...]
In Australia 25 per cent of our children currently experience bullying and 33 per cent experience an online threat. We see the extreme outcomes of cyber bullying, in cases like the tragic death of Amy "Dolly" Everett, but what exactly are these kids going through? One case I've worked on involved a teenage girl who [...]
The television ads for children's shoes and stationery tell us it's back-to-school time, bringing with it the thorny perennial public wrangling about equity and government funding. There will also be much time and attention devoted to the growing debate about the role of selective schools. If NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes intends pursuing changes to [...]
A 14-year-old girl from a well-known Northern Territory cattle family who took her own life last week has been remembered by her family as a "kind, caring and beautiful soul" as they launched a social media campaign to raise awareness of bullying and harassment. The family of Amy "Dolly" Everett, who was once the face [...]
Earlier this week Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers' Retirement System, two Apple shareholder groups, posted an open letter to Apple asking for more and better parental controls for iPhone. "More than 10 years after the iPhone's release, it is a cliché to point out the ubiquity of Apple's devices among children and [...]
Thailand had become the "webcam centre for child pornography", warns experts. Source: Australian child sex abusers on notice in Thailand
A former Facebook executive is making waves after he spoke out about his "tremendous guilt" over growing the social network, which he feels has eroded "the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other." Chamath Palihapitiya began working for Facebook in 2007 and left in 2011 as its vice president for user [...]
How young is too young to be on social media? Strictly speaking, only those aged 13 and over are allowed to use Facebook. But the prevention methods are trivial, meaning more than 20 million under-13-year-olds are thought to be using the network. So on Monday, Facebook launched its first app tailored for young users. It's a [...]
