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Colouring Inside the Lines: Using Technology to Regulate Children’s Behaviour Online

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Minding Minors Wandering the Web: Regulating Online Child Safety

Part of the book series: Information Technology and Law Series ((ITLS,volume 24))

Abstract

Online safety for children and teenagers is a concern for regulators, policy makers and technology developers. One of the ways to create safer online environments for this group is through ‘technological influencing’, i.e. through the use of technical tools. Such tools shape what children and teenagers can and cannot do when they go online. They limit children’s access to certain content and make certain actions impossible. Technological influencing comes in various forms, some very stringent (techno-regulation), others less so (nudging, persuasion). Van den Berg discusses the ideas underlying technological influencing and looks at different cases thereof in the domain of online safety for children. Currently, technology developers exclusively rely on techno-regulation to ensure that youngsters will ‘color inside the lines’, i.e. they leave children no room to manoeuvre, to experiment. Providing them with nudging mechanisms, however, would teach them more about potential risks, and hence make them more risk-aware and resilient. This is especially important for older children.

Bibi van den Berg is Assistant Professor at eLaw, the Center for Law in the Information Society at Leiden University’s Law School, Leiden, The Netherlands.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Hasebrink et al. 2011; Livingstone and Haddon 2009a; OECD 2011.

  2. 2.

    Livingstone et al. 2011.

  3. 3.

    ITU 2009.

  4. 4.

    And, of course, also for adults.

  5. 5.

    Cf. ITU 2009. The ITU report focuses almost exclusively the policy measures that should be taken, both on national and international levels, to combat the rise and spread of child abuse material (or CAM for short) via the internet. However, many of the policy recommendations in this report also apply to other areas that have been defined as online risks for children and teenagers.

  6. 6.

    Duffy 2003; Fogg 2003; Friedman et al. 2003; Friedman and Millett 1995; Nass and Moon 2000; Nass et al. 1994a, b; 1993; Reeves and Nass 1996; Thaler and Sunstein 2008; Turkle 1984, 2007; Van den Berg 2010a, b; Verbeek 2005.

  7. 7.

    Fogg 2003.

  8. 8.

    Fogg 2003, p. 49.

  9. 9.

    Thaler and Sunstein 2008.

  10. 10.

    Thaler and Sunstein 2008, p. 3.

  11. 11.

    Thaler and Sunstein 2008; for a critical reading of this concept, cf. Yeung 2012; Amir and Lobel 2009; Burgess 2012.

  12. 12.

    Van den Berg and Leenes 2010, 2011.

  13. 13.

    See ‘clocky’ and ‘Tocky’ at www.nandahome.com.

  14. 14.

    Hildebrandt 2008, 2009, 2011.

  15. 15.

    Hildebrandt 2011.

  16. 16.

    Cf. Brownsword 2008; Latour 1992; Leenes 2010; Leenes 2011;Van den Berg 2011; Van den Berg and Leenes 2013.

  17. 17.

    Morgan and Yeung 2007; Yeung 2008.

  18. 18.

    Cf. Lessig 2006.

  19. 19.

    Cf. ITU 2009; Hasebrink et al. 2011.

  20. 20.

    Livingstone and Haddon 2009b, p. 19. Note that having the software installed does not mean that parents are actually using it.

  21. 21.

    Cf. ITU 2009; Deibert et al. 2008.

  22. 22.

    Thierer 2009.

  23. 23.

    Thierer 2009, p. 15.

  24. 24.

    The list of keywords that must be filtered can, in many cases, be composed or adjusted by parents themselves. Many internet filtering packages also come with a preinstalled list. In the broader context of using filtering and blocking software governments and other regulatory forces may also define lists of keywords to be filtered within the boundaries over which they hold sovereign power.

  25. 25.

    Preston 2007, p. 1451; also see Deibert et al. 2008, p. 34.

  26. 26.

    Preston 2007; also see Deibert et al. 2008, p. 34.

  27. 27.

    Cf. Yeung 2011, p. 7.

  28. 28.

    Cf. Livingstone and Haddon 2009b.

  29. 29.

    Zittrain and Palfrey 2008, p. 44.

  30. 30.

    Livingstone and Haddon 2009b, p. 26.

  31. 31.

    See www.kidzui.com (last accessed on 12 June 2013).

  32. 32.

    The Netherlands has its own browser especially designed for children, called MyBee (see www.mybee.nl (last accessed on 12 June 2013)). This browser was created and is owned by KPN, the Netherlands’ largest cable and telephone company.

  33. 33.

    Burt 2010.

  34. 34.

    See www.buddybrowser.com/Free-Parental-Controls.cfm (last accessed on 12 June 2013).

  35. 35.

    Preston 2007.

  36. 36.

    Gralla 2007, p. 312.

  37. 37.

    Preston 2007.

  38. 38.

    Preston 2007, p. 1431.

  39. 39.

    Cf. Gralla 2007; Nunziato 2008.

  40. 40.

    Preston 2007, p. 1432.

  41. 41.

    Nunziato 2008, p. 1573.

  42. 42.

    Also see Weekes 2003.

  43. 43.

    Nunziato 2008.

  44. 44.

    Thierer 2009, p. 56.

  45. 45.

    Thierer 2009, p. 195, also see Thierer 2013.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Law in the Information Society, University of Leiden, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Bibi van den Berg

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Correspondence to Bibi van den Berg .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. eLaw – Center for law in the information society, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Simone van der Hof

  2. eLaw – Center for law in the information, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Bibi van den Berg

  3. Faculty of Law eLaw – Centre for Law in the Information, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Bart Schermer

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van den Berg, B. (2014). Colouring Inside the Lines: Using Technology to Regulate Children’s Behaviour Online. In: van der Hof, S., van den Berg, B., Schermer, B. (eds) Minding Minors Wandering the Web: Regulating Online Child Safety. Information Technology and Law Series, vol 24. T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-005-3_4

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