The youth continues to be one of the most
vulnerable sectors in society, especially in the digital environment. For this
reason, Child Rights Coalition Asia (CRC Asia), ChildFund Korea, and ChildFund
Philippines, in partnership with TikTok Asia Pacific, organized a two-part
dialogue and consultation aimed at creating a safe, inclusive and friendly
digital space for children.
Guided by the United Nations Committee on the
Rights of the Child General Comment No. 25 (2021) on children’s rights in
relation to the digital environment, the intergenerational dialogue between the
youth, child rights-focused NGOs, and TikTok was organized to determine
children’s sentiments and experiences towards their use of online platforms and
the issues they encounter involving personal privacy, false/harmful
information, and even sexual abuse and exploitation.
“The digital space is very dynamic and quickly
evolving, so it demands a lot from us to be open to learn new things, but at
the same time it also challenges us to hold on to the principles of
transparency, solidarity, and of course kindness to each other because these
are also the principles that we want to be able to share to our children,” says
Amihan Abueva, CRC Asia’s Regional Executive Director.
The objective of the discourse is to
proactively engage the youth in co-creating a safe, inclusive, child-friendly
digital space. There were a total of 30 participants aged 13 to 18, with
diverse gender profile and came from different parts of the country including
Metro Manila, Cabanatuan, Pampanga, Laguna, Olongapo, Quezon, Zamboanga,
Ozamiz, and Cagayan de Oro.
During the consultation, the youth
participants touched on enhancing the terms of data privacy policies with a
more creative and child-friendly approach. They also proposed integrating
digital literacy in the younger
generation’s curriculum and educating the parents as well. The youths also
emphasized their call for the government sector, specifically the Department of
Education represented by the Learners Rights Protection Office (LRPO), to
constantly work with civil society organizations (CSOs) and strengthen law
implementation in the country. The youths also shared that, while social media
platforms boost their confidence by letting them freely share their own expressions
of gender and sexuality, they still experience being unsafe on the internet as
a public platform.
The participants were commended for
proactively sharing their experiences on the use of digital platforms and for
showing their eagerness to participate in achieving the objectives of the
dialogue.
"I want to thank all the young people who
expressed their thoughts and experiences with us. It was inspiring to see their
awareness of digital literacy and their ability to take charge of it. This was
a great avenue for us to empower more youths on the platform by building better
and safer digital space for them. Moreso, the suggestions they shared will
strengthen the industry’s safety policies involving minors and enforce support
for local laws such as RA 11930, which aims to prevent online sexual abuse and
exploitation of children. We are eager to continue our collaboration with the
government and NGOs to co-create a safer and more responsible online community
for everyone,” says Nathaniel Ong, Trust and Safety Program Manager at TikTok.
Also at the dialogue, child rights
organizations, government institutions and TikTok conversed on the presented
views and opinions of children to build more strategic ways in ensuring that
young people have the opportunity to empower themselves in addressing online
risks so that they can safely maximize the benefits offered by the digital environment
Other child rights-focused organizations
likewise shared that they were encouraged to further improve their programming
by leveling up their online and offline interventions that contribute to the
development of children’s digital citizenship and in strengthening children’s
agency in creating a safer online space.
Reaching to a consensus, all organizations and
institutions agreed that they needed to closely work on addressing online
disinformation, misinformation and malinformation and teaching children and
youth on how to be discerning and responsible digital citizens; how to find the
balance between maximizing digital platforms as a source of knowledge and how
to make them aware of the risks while not restraining their own freedom of
expression.
“The past days were such a wonderful
experience. I hope there are more opportunities to engage and discuss with the
government, CSOs, and tech companies to develop capacities across all
stakeholders. I’m very appreciative of TikTok and I hope that this is not the
end of this workshop. Hopefully we can bring this not only to the Philippines
but to other countries as well,” says Jinyi Park, Global Program Manager and
Communications of ChildFund Korea.
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