Tomorrow is international Safer Internet 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 Global Online Safety Survey 2023: Parents’ and Kids’ Perceptions of Online Safety as a part of our contribution to creating the web a safer place to work, play and interact with others.
Our 2023 survey discovered that 69% of individuals surveyed had skilled a web-based threat within the final yr. The most typical dangers encountered globally have been misinformation and disinformation, and private dangers (together with cyberbullying, hate speech and threats of violence). Respondents within the UK (50%) and Germany (56%) have been least more likely to expertise a web-based threat, whereas respondents within the Philippines (86%) and Chile (79%) have been almost certainly to expertise a web-based threat.
Parents underestimate on-line dangers to teenagers in each class
The analysis discovered that teenagers skilled on-line dangers at the next price than mother and father believed: 74% of teenagers reported experiencing a web-based threat, whereas 62% of fogeys believed their teen had encountered a threat on-line – a 12-point distinction.
We additionally discovered that oldsters not solely underestimated the dangers – however did so in each class. The largest gaps pertained to hate speech, carefully 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.
Teens additionally fear extra about threats of violence sooner or later than do mother and father.
After experiencing a web-based threat 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.
Parents use security instruments as a result of they consider they maintain their youngsters safer on-line
Most mother and father report taking motion to maintain their youngsters safer on-line – together with checking their kids’s profiles and posts, receiving exercise experiences and usually speaking to their kids about their on-line actions. This yr’s analysis confirmed that oldsters typically considered security options as efficient instruments to assist maintain their kids secure on-line, and 81% of fogeys report utilizing at the least one. Parents of youthful kids ages 6-12 have 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). Tools that enabled mother and father to overview buddy/comply with requests (71%) and limits to on-line spending (69%) have been believed by mother and father to be only.
Microsoft’s dedication to digital security
At Microsoft, now we have a longstanding dedication and multifaceted method to youngster on-line security and this analysis reveals us that all of us – tech corporations, governments, civil society and households – have to 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 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 secure and inclusive on-line communities permits all to extra totally take part in digital environments. Â That contains serving to individuals perceive the dangers they could face on-line and methods through which individuals can defend themselves and their households.
Finally, multistakeholder collaboration stays important to tackling the intersection of real-world and digital harms. That’s why we have been proud to affix France’s President Macron and the Childhood Online Protection Laboratory launched on the Paris Peace Forum in November 2022, and why we are going to proceed to work with policymakers and others around the globe to form efficient, proportional responses to assist make the web a secure house for everybody.
We perceive that many mother and father are searching for instructional sources and steerage to assist them customise the net security experiences for his or her households, and are happy to offer the next:
- Resources | Microsoft Online Safety
- Global survey outcomes and suggestions for teenagers and oldsters
- Xbox Family Hub
- Resource for households to setup a toddler account on Xbox and data for households for privateness and security
- Microsoft Family Safety
- Empowers households to create wholesome habits and defend them with digital and bodily security steerage and instruments
- Xbox Family Settings App
- Manage kids’s gaming console gaming actions
- Xbox Safety Guidance
- Xbox’s evolving method to security, the brand new Privacy Prodigy from Minecraft Education, and suggestions and instruments that oldsters can use with their households to play on Xbox
We additionally know that gaming will be a useful device for studying, so this Safer Internet Day, Minecraft: Education Edition is releasing an immersive game-based studying journey, Privacy Prodigy, for college students ages 7-18. Players will tackle the problem of defending their knowledge as they enterprise farther from dwelling. They will likely be confronted with situations that assist them be taught in regards to the private data that may be shared and what needs to be saved non-public. Privacy Prodigy is a continuation of the CyberSafe collection launched final yr with Home Sweet Hmm, and will likely be out there totally free for each Minecraft Education and within the Marketplace.
Research 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] Parents have been requested to reply about their youngster’s experiences. All members have been requested questions on their perceptions of life on-line and expertise of 10 completely different dangers, throughout 5 broad threat classes. The following are some key traits from this yr’s analysis – you could find a abstract together with country-specific knowledge right here.
[1] Canada, United States, Mexico, Columbia, Peru, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, India, Philippines, Singapore, Australia. At least 1,000 interviews have been performed in every nation, together with 500 every amongst teenagers and adults.