Distribution of illegal contents in the Internet is a serious social problem – say the authors of the operating report of Dyżurnet.pl team (Polish hotline collecting reports of illegal contents available on the Internet) for 2006. The most drastic example is the growing number of websites containing “child pornography” (pornographic contents involving a minor of under 15 years of age).
As we can read in the report, the anonymity provided by the Internet favors pedophiles and creates a favorable environment for exchanging pornographic contents and identifying children to be sexually abused. Pedophiles organized in a sort of an underground can track children who use Internet and exchange their e-mail addresses, full names, addresses and phone numbers.
Report authors also point out the dangers that are beginning to emerge. The implementation of new services such as pay-per-TV, online “movie rentals”, making available online games involving sex and violence – while in Poland there is no properly working system to verify the age of users who log on to the service – may trigger a wave of new group of reports on dangerous and illegal contents being offered to underage users.
The report, however, also brings good news. Statistics provided by “Dyżurnet” reveal that Internet users are especially sensitive to contents related to child pornography. Of the contents reported to the team in 2006 and qualified for further intervention, child pornography was predominant, representing 73 percent. 7 percent involved racism and xenophobia, further 7 percent were reports of incitement to aggression, child seduction or drug promotion and 6 percent involved so called “hard pornography” (contents of deviant character, full of violence and cruelty, using images of kids and animals). The report also mentions cases of so called cyberbulling (bullying online) and grooming (seducing minors online, e.g. during chats or discussions in message boards).
Although the major task of “Dyżurnet” is handling reports from Internet users, the team also engages in activities to boost awareness and promote the principles of safe use of the WWW resources. In 2006, team members took part, as speakers, in a number of conferences and seminars regarding child protection in the Internet, addressed to representatives of local governments and NGOs, teachers and educators working with children, Internet service providers, Internet café owners, as well as representatives of the police, attorney’s office, courts and media.
Dyżurnet.pl is a Polish point of contact, a “hotline” where cases of distributing prohibited contents (child pornography, pedophilia, racist and xenophobic contents) can be anonymously reported. Cases of law violation reported to Dyżurnet.pl team are forwarded to law enforcement services in Poland or – through the agency of foreign hotline teams – to law enforcement services abroad.
Running a Polish hotline is one of the two projects carried out by NASK as part of the EU “Safer Internet” programme. A complementary undertaking is the “Awareness” project, the purpose of which is a broad campaign to boost awareness and promote safe principles of Internet use by kids and teenagers, run by NASK and Nobody´s Children Foundation . The implementation of both projects started in January 2005. Since 1 st October 2006, Dyżurnet.pl and Awareness teams have been implementing the next two-year stage of the European programme, integrated as one common project under the name of Saferinternet.pl.. |
