On 3 February 2011 The Public Chamber of the Russian Federation hosted the “Day of Children’s Internet”, organized by the Center for Safer Internet as a part of the Safer Runet Week.
The event focused on discussion on best applicable to the Children’s Internet technologies. As well, the participants strived to identify new ways for Internet-based education. The discussion centered on the issue as to how Russian children view the Internet and what they expect to find therein.
The discussion was led both by veteran experts (in particular, Head of the Center for Safer Internet, Urvan Parfentiev), representatives of harmonious education of children and teenagers, Head of the Intercommission ad-hock working group on childhood and youth policy issues of the RF Public Chamber, the leader of the human rights movement “Resistance”, O.N. Kostina, Russian film director and scriptwriter, B.Yu. Grachevasky, member of the RF Public Chamber, President of NPO International Women’s Center “Women’s Future”, A.V. Ochirova, distinguished worker of culture, author and anchor of the children’s program “ABVGDEIKA”, T.K. Cherniaeva, among others.
Sergey Mironov, Chairman of the RF Council of Federation, noted in his welcoming address that the most pressing challenge to date has been not only to guarantee children’s safety in the Internet but to fill the Internet with interesting and useful content. “It is necessary to make the Internet diverse and exciting for the younger generation, and to achieve this we need a meaningful dialogue between the government, experts and the Internet users,” – considers Sergey Mironov.
The Leader of the human rights movement “Resistance”, O.N. Kostina, noted that today’s Internet is a powerful engine of public sentiment. “Our challenge now is to continue developing the Internet, to focus not only on security but the ability of the Internet to grow, and on the Internet penetration in remote settlements, - says Olga Kostina. – After all, with the help of such instrument as the Internet, society even now can promptly pool forces to tackle critical problems.”
The President of NPO International Women’s Center “Women’s Future”, A.V. Ochirova drew the attendees’ attention to the recently adopted law “On Protection of Children from the Information which is Detrimental to their Health and Evolution.” “Undoubtedly, this law contains incomplete themes which have yet to be debated, nevertheless, it is a very serious document that demonstrates that the government begins to appreciate the children’s safety on the Internet, - believes Alexandra Ochirova. – Forty- four percent of Russian children now run into pornographic content and 40% receive cyber proposals of indecent character and one-third of them accept those. These are huge figures, and it is time we thought about them at the government level.”
Russian movie director and scriptwriter B.Yu. Grachevsky and member of the RF Union of Moviemakers G.V. Gladkov believe that the key to success in finding fascinating subjects for the children’s Internet lies in diversity of information, sincere approach and right values behind the content appealing to children. “We must always demonstrate to children what is sensible and decent. The Internet is a perfect vehicle for this. It is only necessary to fill it with adequate content.”
“It is very hard to keep a child’s attention. To do it, we very often must become children ourselves, to a certain extent. It is also important for the Internet content. We need to have fun in creating it, and children in turn will enjoy browsing it,” adds Grigory Gladkov.
However, Urvan Parfentiev voiced a pretty down-to-earth perspective: ideas aside, giving children mind-boggling and extensive information resources requires substantial investment of time and effort. “The child is a very demanding viewer and reader. - said Parfentiev. - Generation of a legitimate content for children demands huge resources. Today, this is done primarily by public organizations and associations.” Head of the Center for Safer Internet also added that the current most important task is not so much to limit children’s time spent online and impose a strict control upon them as to explain that there is no cyber world apart from the real one. There is only one world – that is, the reality, and the Internet forms its interesting, colorful and fascinating part.
The “Day of Children’s Internet” was crowned with debates the experts held with the most active group of Internet users – namely, high schoolers.
