Activities :: Social Networking Sites :: Safer social networking
Safer social networking: the choice of self-regulation
Misuse of new technologies can present many risks to children and young people, such as cyber-bullying, grooming, privacy violation or exposure to harmful content (pornography, racism, etc). European legislation already exists to protect young people online (protection of personal data). And yet, technology is changing our societies so fast that it is difficult for legislators to keep up. The adoption of new rules takes time, especially when they have to be agreed by 27 countries.
This is why, in the interest of online child safety, the European Commission encourages those who create new interactive tools to adopt rules and principles themselves (self-regulation). The Commission's role is to bring all the relevant players (industry, associations, etc) together for them to agree on these rules and principles.
Safer Social Networking Principles for the EU: signature and implementation
In 2008, the Commission convened some of Europe's major social networks as well as researchers and child welfare organizations, to form a European Social Networking Task Force to discuss guidelines for the use of social networking sites by children.
"The Safer Social Networking Principles for EU" were voluntarily adopted by the industry in February 2009.
The
Commission committed to monitor the implementation of this agreement and on
Safer Internet Day 2010, in Strasbourg, it has presented the
findings of an independent
assessment reporting on the implementation of the Principles by the 20
signatories.
Signatories and self-declarations
Signatories to the Principles have provided the Commission with a
self-declaration on their individual safety policies, specifying how they
implement these principles. The self-declarations are available in the table
below.
| Signatories and self-declarations | Date of accession to the Principles |
Date of submission of the self-declarations |
Arto
|
10 February 2009 |
15 April 2009 |
|
Bebo
|
10 February 2009 | 17 April 2009 |
|
Dailymotion
|
10 February 2009 | 10 April 2009 |
|
Facebook
|
10 February 2009 | 16 April 2009 |
Giovani.it
 |
10 February 2009 | 8 February 2010 |
Google
|
10 February 2009 | 15 May 2009 |
|
Hyves.nl
|
10 February 2009 | 17 April 2009 |
| Microsoft Europe
|
10 February 2009 | 17 April 2009 |
| MySpace
|
10 February 2009 | 17 April 2009 |
| nasza-klasa.pl
|
10 February 2009 | 1 May 2009 |
| Netlog
|
10 February 2009 | 28 May 2009 |
| One.lt
|
10 February 2009 | 17 June 2009 |
| Piczo
|
10 February 2009 | 16 April 2009 |
|
Rate.ee
|
9 June 2009 | 9 June 2009 |
|
Skyrock.com
|
10 February 2009 | 29 April 2009 |
| StudiVZ.de
|
10 February 2009 | 17 June 2009 |
| Sulake/Habbo.com
|
10 February 2009 | 15 April 2009 |
| Tuenti
(EN)
(ES) |
12 June 2009 | 12 June 2009 |
| Yahoo! Europe
|
10 February 2009 | 17 April 2009 |
|
Zap.lu
|
10 February 2009 | 17 April 2009 |
See the findings of the assessment
See a short description of the companies supporting the Principles