10 February 2009 | Author: O. Gaywood Media Optimiser

Social networking sites to crack down on cyberbullying

In a bid to make the internet more child friendly, the European Commission has reached an agreement with internet companies to help protect youngsters online.

The deal is concerned with social networking sites, with 17 of the major players - including Facebook, MySpace and Bebo - having signed up and agreed to make significant changes to their sites by April this year. Other sites involved in the deal include YouTube, Daily Motion and Habbo Hotel.

Changes to be implemented include introducing higher default privacy settings for kids and better systems for dealing with cyberbullying, such as a one-click system to report abuse. While this may mean major work for some sites, others have already been implementing these changes as they look to protect their users.

Viviane Reding, the EU commissioner for information society and the media, said: "Social networking has enormous potential to flourish in Europe, to help boost our economy and make society more interactive - as long as children and teenagers have the trust and the right tools to remain safe when making new 'friends' and sharing personal details online."

The deal comes as people, schools and companies across the globe are observing Safer Internet Day - which falls on 10 February this year. In the UK, schools are holding assemblies to educate pupils while teachers are being shown a guidance film and other resources to help them speak to children and parents about the subject.

A 2008 Eurobarometer survey showed that 54% of European parents are worried that their child could be bullied online. Cyberbullying covers actions such as repeatedly making fun of someone online, picking on someone through e-mails or using forums to harm, humiliate or isolate another person.

This new arrangement comes the week after two major developments in online safety - a campaign by US prosecutors to tighten up regulation of social networks saw MySpace remove 90,000 registered sex offenders from its site while MEPs voted in favour of criminalising grooming - the act of an adult befriending a child online with the intention of committing sexual abuse.

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