As online social networking soars in popularity, U.K. mobile oper...

Jonny Shipp, 02’s head of content standards & policy, said children face no new or unique risks from linking and sharing services, but those risks may be heightened by the ease of creating and distributing extreme or inappropriate content away from parental supervision. O2 insists, “when it can,” on content classification and age-based access control, offering parents the option of restricting Internet access on children’s mobile phones. Human moderators also check all uploads to O2’s “Look at Me” service before they go online, Shipp said -- but “none of these controls can take the place of informed parental supervision.” O2 is trying to close the online knowledge gap between parents and children, he said. Everyone bears responsibility for child protection, wrote John Carr, chairs of the U.K. Children’s Charities’ Coalition on Internet Safety. Social networking and other interactive digital technologies enable “old forms of problematic behavior, including criminal behavior, to be repackaged and presented in new guises,” he said. Even if some parents’ and policymakers’ fears of online dangers aren’t justified, children do come to terrible harm made possible by new technologies, Carr said, adding that it’s no surprise social networking sites and other new digital technologies spark “an initial buzz of concern.” In the U.K., however, the Internet Task Force on Child Protection, whose members include govt., police, child safety experts and technology players, is a well established mechanism for resolving such problems, he said. Young people’s views figure in setting protective boundaries, said National Consumer Council (NCC) Chief. Exec. Ed Mayo. The NCC has been examining children’s lives as consumers and made 3 key findings: (1) Children always have been active in economic and commercial life as workers and consumers. (2) A new “shopping generation” has arisen among today’s children. (3) But youngsters feel they are treated as 2nd-class customers. “Mobile phone companies are zero- rated for service by young consumers, making them more unpopular than doorstep salesmen,” May wrote. Children don’t want all ads aimed at them banned, but favor tighter controls, NCC found. Mayo urged children’s voices be heard in debates leading to decisions on new technologies. From an early age, children understand and use mobile phones, the Internet, computers and video games, wrote freelance writer Jennie Bristow. Their savvy can frighten parents, but “just as the stranger at the swimming pool is highly unlikely to abduct our children, mobile phones are not about to lure than into the great unknown from which we will never be able to pull them back.” There are risks, she said, but when it comes to the mobile device’s role, “it’s only talk.” The “spiked” child protection debate is part of an effort by O2 to engage the public on mobile phone issues, said Chmn. Peter Erskine.