CyberSafe Scotland

I really enjoyed writing this piece for YouthLink Scotland - and hope it will be helpful to everyone who reads it.

The UK are planning to implement a social media ban on 10 platforms from March next year but there are lots of important lessons we can learn from experiences in Australia - where they brought in a ban last December but huge challenges remain.

1. 80% of children can still access social media there
2. There is early evidence predators are using the ban to as a tool to manipulate vulnerable children ('you shouldn't have been on here'
3. Key platforms are currently excluded e.g. Roblox, Discord and WhatsApp to name a few
4. It doesn't deal with harm moving to chatbots
5. we need to educate children about what is coming and provide them other ways to access key services!

If you are interested you can read much more in my article below. More on this soon...

📢 New blog!

Annabel Turner, Director of CyberSafe Scotland, looks at what has happened in Australia so far in regards to social media restrictions – and five lessons we should be thinking about now.

Take a moment this Cyber Security Awareness Month to read more 👉 https://bit.ly/3VvGkJR

Say hello to the CyberSafe Scotland Team! 👋💙

We are thrilled to introduce the brilliant staff who bring our Respected and Safe online safety programmes to life! 🏫✨

As a social enterprise, our strength lies entirely in our people. Together, we work closely with schools, parents, and local authorities to make sure children’s voices are heard and their digital rights are protected.

Whether we're breaking down complex new tech trends or offering a helping hand to a worried parent, our team is always here to support your community. Learn more about our work and get free resources at cybersafescotland.org

Delighted to share this news this evening - Annabel will be one of the TEDXAberdeen speakers this year!

The theme is minds wide open and we are cheering her on in her preparations. We look forward to sharing it with you too!

📣 Meta agreed to pay up to £13.24 billion US law suit involving 29 states…

You may have seen details of this law suit in the news over the last few weeks but it is the biggest combined law suit (inter state) brought against a single platform to date

After the first few days of evidence (which were not favourable to the company) they have settled out of court.

States that participated in the lawsuit will receive approximately 70%, about $12.7bn (£9.3bn) of the funds over the decade. The remaining 30% will be released only after two specific conditions are met…

Those are if:

YouTube and TikTok - not owned by Meta - implement a one-hour daily limit, night mode, and age assurance measures

YouTube and TikTok each pay an amount matching the 30% figure, with half of the remaining funds tied to YouTube’s payment and half tied to TikTok’s

While the numbers look interesting it is worth noting that - it also says it expects to accrue a legal expense of approximately $10bn (£7.3bn) in the third quarter of this year related to the agreement (will will have tax consequences)

More details to follow (and link to BBC live news article in the comments) but many of the design changes it has agreed to implement (e.g. turning off auto play on videos) can be turned back on again by the child so we will provide a full summary later. Certainly a very interesting day though.

It was a pleasure to take part in this round table with the First Minister, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice and Housing and other organisations today, and to have the opportunity to share the online experiences of the children we work with as part of the discussion, and our views on opportunities to progress work to prevent online harm.

We recognise the privilege we have as an organisation - of working so closely with the children and supporting them with their most difficult experiences - and the responsibility to make sure these are understood. We look forward to hearing the announcements in September about how the response to online harm and tech facilitated violence against women and girls and all children will be moving forward.

Hi All, hope the first few days or weeks of summer (depending on where you are in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿) have been treating you well and that the weather is helping a little with the screen juggle - we know how hard it can be especially as the weeks go on.

We’ve had an incredibly encouraging month - more on that in the next few weeks.

This is just a wee post to let you know our plans for the summer - Katrina, Alana and I are around all holiday to help. We are working on updating the Respected and Safe lessons for next year, but we also plan to share info on here about key changes we know are coming on platforms over the next few months, and new resources e.g.:

- big changes are expected on Roblox in the next few weeks, we’ve been running some sessions on those so will share some bits,
- Insta have just changed their AI policy this week - we’ll post about that in the next few days so you can check if it impacts you
- we have some new guides to share with you that we’d love your support with later in the summer, to really tackle online sexual abuse and disrupting it before it starts

All summer please DM if you have any questions or want to flag anything to us, or you can use the chat function on our website if you prefer.

I’m currently on a train to Edinburgh for a meeting about a project called Informed Voices - it’s a partnership between Parent Zone and Ofcom about supporting children and young people to recognise misinformation about elections online. I’ll share info on the website next week in case it is helpful.

In the meantime, really hope you are well ☀️

A

💡It’s been a conflicting day. Today's announcement that from spring 2027, children and young people under 16 will be "banned" from 10 "social media platforms" - Tiktok, Snapchat, IG, FB, Youtube, X, Reddit, Twitch, Threads and Kik - has made many online safety campaigning groups very happy.

However, as many of you may know, our driving purpose (while supporting as many children and families as possible with support and education) is to work with and protect vulnerable children and young people online.

While being very aware of the harms children are experiencing, we had to respond to last month's consultation with great care based on the experiences of the children we work with (and I'll link a summary of our response in the comments).

🚨 Understanding the reality of young people's digital lives demonstrates the immediate complexities of a ban narrative - more than half of ALL the serious harm CyberSafe Scotland supported 9-12 year olds with last year occurred on WhatsApp, Roblox and Telegram - all platforms which are excluded from the ban. We urgently need to change how all platforms are designed above everything else.

Further, the “ban” relies on the platforms bringing in effective “age assurance”. This officially came in in July last year. However since July last year, almost none of the children we work with have been prevented from accessing any of the platforms named. In Australia, it is estimated 70 per cent of children continue accessing multiple social media platforms despite the “ban”. So for today’s changes to have any impact at all there would need to be much stronger enforcement.

When the proposed changes occur - what is being offered in their place to support connection and engagement? However we feel about the ban, without a full plan for this children will inevitably move to spaces with equal or higher levels of risk which are arguably even harder to regulate. How are these spaces being going to be designed better and how will children feel if every new app that pops up either escapes the "ban" or is moved into it without a clear plan for something better?

Where is the clear acknowledgment of what is coming down the track with AI? Not just "romantic" chatbots, but how we design all AI to be safer for children and young people.

It's great to see more attention being given to protecting children from harm, and we do welcome the level of national conversation around the issues. That said, the issues are complex for the children we represent. Whatever happens, we will move forward to try to support all the children and families we work with, and all of you, as clearly as possible with the changes. Sorry not to have a more cheery post tonight but wanted to be real!