Summit leaders call for protecting children online
PARIS — Internet giants, including social media apps Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, joined several world leaders — Vice President Kamala Harris among them — to issue a global call to better protect children online at a Paris summit on Thursday.
The call, initiated by France and the U.N. child protection agency UNICEF, acknowledges that “in the digital environment, children can come across harmful and violent content and manipulation of information. Just like adults, children have rights to privacy, which should be respected.”
The text also listed “threats amplified by technology” including cyber bullying, sexual abuse, prostitution, human trafficking, sexual and gender-based violence or violent online radicalization.
Signatories include Amazon, Google and Youtube, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta, Microsoft, Snapchat and Twitter. The call has also been joined by eight nations including France, Italy, Argentina, Jordan and Morocco — although not the
United States.
About 30 heads of state and government and Harris were participating in the Paris Peace Forum that opened Thursday.
Macron chaired the session about children’s rights in the presence of Youtube CEO Susan Wojcicki.
Macron, Harris, EU Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also participated in another roundtable on regulating the digital domain, along with Microsoft president Brad Smith.
Harris announced that the U.S. is joining the Paris Call launched in 2018 to improve security and better regulate cyberspace.