Kaspersky Lab study reveals more than 2/3 of users encountered content dangerous to children in the nternet
Your kid is beside you with his device, but do you know where he or she is in the World Wide Web?
It’s about time you become aware of your child’s whereabouts in the digital world. A recent Kaspersky Lab study called ‘Children Online’ revealed that more than two-thirds of Parental Control technology users encountered inappropriate or dangerous content online.
Kaspersky Lab is an international software security group operating in almost 200 countries and territories worldwide. The company is headquartered in Moscow, Russia, with its holding company registered in the United Kingdom. It has a presence in the Philippines.
The study showed that 68 percent of parent internet users, who use Kaspersky Lab’s filtering technology, faced prevalent threats to children such as adult content, gambling, and sites carrying information about weapons.
Results also said that more than half or 59.5 percent of users encountered pornography while over a quarter or 26.6 percent landed on websites dedicated to gambling. Every fifth user stumbled across sites featuring weapons and almost the same number was confronted by strong language.
Websites carrying inappropriate content like pornography, gambling, weapons, strong language, along with others featuring drugs, tobacco and alcohol, were the ones blocked most often by Kaspersky Lab protection solutions.
Amid the increasing online threats and harmful contents present in the internet, Kaspersky Lab encouraged parents and adults to use Parental Control programs that monitor and regulate children’s access to search engines and applications with possible dangerous content.
On the other hand, it is now harder for parents to monitor their children’s online activities and protect them against existing cyberthreats as children today are often far more active internet users than adults.
Parental Control technologies can block access to sites with dangerous content but it does not guarantee full protection especially in web services like social networking sites where chats and dialogues are used as platform for the most well-known cyber menace, cyberbullying.
“Because of children’s active online presence, they are now more prone to encounters with the dangerous sides of the internet. We encourage and urge parents to be vigilant and be active in their children’s digital lives. That is the only way to be sure that their young will not fall as victims of harmful online activities especially cyberbullying,” said Jimmy Fong, Kaspersky Lab’s Channel Sales Director for Southeast Asia.
Among the existing cyberthreats, cyberbullying is one of the unpleasant effects of hyper-socialization that the internet as a whole – and social networks in particular – bring us.
Cyber bullying is a form of online communication with the intent to abuse or degrade someone, specifically kids. Nearly half of children have been bullied online, every 1 in 4 has had it happen more than once.
“The internet brings a great many benefits, but unfortunately it also allows certain people to unleash their destructive human traits, and cyberbullying has become a widespread problem today. For its victims, the psychological damage can be massive and long-lasting,” said Eugene Kaspersky, founder and CEO of the security firm.
“There’s probably no purely technological answer, but we must talk about it to raise awareness of this issue and help young people and their parents safely make the most of the good things the internet has to offer,” he added.
According to an AGB Nielsen 2011 report1, almost two thirds or 65 percent of Filipino internet users were aged 15 to 19. With the Philippines’ ‘young’ internet population, it is important for the modern-day parents to know how to protect their kids against cyberbullying.
