Counteracting threats to child safety in audiovisual media and cyberspace. A criminological and legal perspective

• In Event: Social Media and Crime

Abstract

The paper is based on the results of the two-volume publication (2024) devoted to the title problems; it contains an analysis of European legal solutions (including chosen court decisions) and relevant research from the period 1989-2023.
The issue of threats that the mass media poses to minor from the very beginning of their existence was considered an area of significant importance, due to his/her age-determined vulnerability to their influence. In the era of rapid development of information and communication technologies, the seriousness of these aspects and need to effectively counteract them are increasing (using legal instruments and a wide spectrum of alternative methods to protect the safety of the child's proper development).
The subject of the Paper is to discuss the issue of counteracting the following types of threats for minors: 1) Digital exclusion as a contemporary dimension of social exclusion, 2) Negative implications of globalization (such as: dangers related to consumerism and patterns pop culture /in particular body image and eating disorders/, changing the paradigm of their deviant attitudes and behaviors), 3) Privacy and security risks and risks related with the consumer status, 4) Threats related to sexual crime against them, 5) Media content that threatens their proper development (violence, pornography), 6) Implied technological transformations of traditional threats (as: cyberbullying, sexualization of the child /with e.g. sextortion/), 7) internet threats (related to the cyberspace environment, such as: Internet addictions, aggressive on-line games, online virtual relationship disorders) and 8) contemporary challenges (AI, IoT, Dark-Net).
Counteracting the above-mentioned detailed threats includes the following criteria: choice of legal instruments (soft or hard law) or alternative methods (such as self-regulation, technical methods, age categorization, helplines), scope of international/supranational cooperation and the necessary level of regulation (universal, European, internal).
The proposed topic seems current and requires in-depth debates focused on practical solutions.

Author

• Katarzyna Badźmirowska-Masłowska, War Studies University, Faculty of Law and Administration, Warsaw Poland