Parents worried about internet abuse

Half of Maltese parents are very worried their children can be bullied or abused on the internet, according to a survey conducted by the European Commission.

More than half the parents interviewed for the survey also said they do not allow children who are under 18 to create a personal profile on one of the many social networks.

The figures come just days after Children's Commissioner Carmen Zammit said Malta's internet abuse reporting service is not functioning properly due to lack of funds and the EU's Justice Commissioner warned young people about privacy issues arising from the use of social networks.

The survey's results were published by the Commission as part of a new campaign launched across the EU to make the internet safer and free of abuse.

Announcing a major initiative, the Commission said 17 leading web firms have, for the first time, signed a European agreement to improve the safety of under-18s who use social networking sites. The signatories include popular networks such as Facebook, Google, YouTube, Hi5 and MySpace.

According to the Commission, the networks are recognising their responsibility to identify potential risks on their sites to the under-18s. Such risks include cyberbullying (harassing children on internet sites or via mobile messages), grooming (when an adult befriends a child with the intention of committing sexual abuse) and risky behaviour like revealing personal information.

The social networks are committing themselves to limit these risks by providing an easy-to-use "report abuse" button to allow users to report inappropriate contact. The networks will also ensure the full online profiles and contact lists of website users registered as under-18s are set to "private" by default.

Social network sites are an emerging social and economic phenomenon, attracting 41.7 million regular users in Europe and changing the way people interact with each other on the web.

The use of social networks has grown over the past year by 35 per cent in Europe and is expected to more than double to 107.4 million users by 2012.