Creating Safer Digital Places for Kids
Join child advocates around the country who are calling for accurate app ratings and descriptions due to online grooming, sex trafficking, pornography, and sexploitation. #fixappratings
Creating Safer Digital Places for Kids
Child advocates call for accurate app ratings and descriptions due to online grooming, sex trafficking, pornography, and sexploitation. #fixappratings
BREAKING NEWS: On November 20, 2019, House Representatives Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Ben MacAdams (D-UT) submitted House Resolution 721 calling to establish an app ratings board and intuitive parental controls!
THE PROBLEM
Tech currently self-rates and has no accountability.
No one is holding technology companies accountable for the impacts they have on our young people. Many apps popular with youth are incorrectly self-rated and include dishonest and generic app descriptions that deceive parents about the dangers kids face on these platforms.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, Protect Young Eyes, Utah State Senator Todd Weiler, and child advocate Melissa McKay have started a movement to increase accountability in the current app rating system. Read our complete statement.
SNAPCHAT (12+)
App Store says: infrequent/mild sexual content and nudity, alcohol, drug use, profanity, and suggestive themes.
Reality: sextortion, pornography, prostitution and sex trafficking, monetized accounts for sex acts, minimal parental controls, Discover news articles frequently push: porn, risky sexual behaviors, sexting, drugs and alcohol. Recommended: 17+
NETFLIX (4+)
App Store says: because it's 4+, no content warnings included.
Reality: poor parental controls, regularly recommends TV-MA, R, and NC-17 content next to child content, originally-produced content depicts: graphic sexual violence, normalizing sex trafficking of minors and gratuitous nudity. Recommended: 17+
INSTAGRAM (12+)
App Store says: infrequent/mild sexual content and nudity, alcohol, drug use, profanity, and suggestive themes.
Reality: sex trafficking and prostitution, self-harm, cyberbullying, pornography, nudity, animal abuse, lack of strong reporting, lack of parental controls, unrestricted web access, no age verification, drugs and alcohol, child abuse and sexual abuse images. Recommended: 17+
“Parents are empowered with rating information to keep kids out of R-rated films, but when it comes to apps, parents are left in the dark about the kind of content their children are accessing.”
Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation
The Solution: Advocates Call for the Following Actions
We need each of you to take action! Here are your next steps:
Step 3: Join the Team
Receive exclusive updates on our Facebook page.
“It’s our societal duty to protect kids online, and that starts with properly warning parents about the risks associated with certain apps and giving parents more parental controls options.”
Chris McKenna, Founder of Protect Young Eyes
A MOVEMENT INITIATED BY:
With support from our Allies:
Are you looking for more details?
This post explains our complete plan.
“We need social media platforms to step up and be better corporate citizens and neighbors. Our children’s innocence is at stake.”
Todd Weiler, Utah State Senator