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Open targets
Meloy, a former software and game developer, relates there are no solid safeguards for children in gaming.
“As a former game developer, I’m going to be honest with you, game development is a business and games are the product, so in essence, the end goal in developing games is to profit,” she said.
Meloy (her real nickname but prefers not to reveal her family name) who has since retired from the industry after a 10-year tenure to focus on her children, said safeguards depend on the type of applications used as there are those which target children and require users to be 13 years old. Any younger than that, the users will need their parents’ permission or for their account to be tied to a parents’ account, but there are many who still lack these safety checks.
Meloy said “China imposed a law where minors can only play a certain number of hours and only on certain days and can only play certain games, but for them, it is doable to implement because their government has measures in place in their society to monitor everyone’s moves. While in the USA, they call it a HIPAA compliance — this means any game or app you want to publish in the US needs to comply.”
The HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, compels companies handling electronic protected health information (e-PHI), to implement physical, network, and procedural security measures, in a bid to protect data and ultimately, users who are not of legal age.
However, there are areas in which the HIPAA is still lacking — the only age verification tool many sites employ is a simple checkbox for users to click attesting they are of legal age.
Meloy confirms “That’s it, they just check a box. Obviously, kids who don’t get monitored by their adults are going to lie about (their age) and check the box anyway.” She points out that this merely protects the company, rather than the users, from legal problems, shifting the burden to consumers who willfully fake information online.
Based on the UNICEF “National Study on Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children in the Philippines (OSAEC),” the country has emerged as the center of child sex abuse materials production in the world, with 80% of Filipino children vulnerable to online sexual abuse, some facilitated even by their own parents.
The study revealed, cultural beliefs also contribute to the spread of OSAEC, including:
- a) The belief that if the children are untouched, they are not harmed;
- b) Peddling their children’s videos online provides easy money and almost everyone does it;
- c) Children are expected to help the family financially;
- d) One should not interfere in the affairs of other families; and
- e) Technology is only for the younger generation to learn.
Danger could be at the tip of your child’s fingers
Myra Gahid, a psychologist, said “When discussing online gaming, the disadvantages of prolonged online gaming have been the subject of much research. In a study of the impact of COVID-19 on gaming addiction of children and adolescents (Han, Cho, Sung, & Park 2022), they observed that “some children and adolescents in emotional pain play games to communicate with their peers” while “violent parenting and the absence of parental supervision increase levels of game addiction in children.” As children are more vulnerable to seemingly unharmful advances such as being asked, “Who are you with?” or “Are you alone?”, they become easy targets for predators. Anonymity and opportunities to create different personas online are also contributing factors.”
The UNICEF policy brief on “Beating the Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children in the Philippines,” reveal 43.8% of children aged 13 to below 18 experience cyber violence. According to the 2016 National Baseline Study on Violence Against Children) of the Council for the Welfare of Children and UNICEF, about 25% of the cyber violence suffered by these children involve sexual and explicit exchange and an estimated 2.5% had their own nude body or own sexual activities shown on the internet, including both real and falsified images.
Gahid added: “As parents use gadgets more frequently to calm a crying child or to stop them from asking numerous questions when the parent is tired, children may tend to develop an unhealthy level of dependence on gadgets due to a lack of delay of gratification. Children may also have a shorter attention span which can lead to difficulty in concentrating, even in school. However, research indicates that while using gadgets can improve a child’s creativity, prolonged screen time can also cause eyesight concerns, speech or language delay, and sleep deprivation.”
Tobie Abad, creative director for a software development company confirms, that in the Philippines, there are no guidelines and safeguards for gaming and children and most often than not, it will depend on the client on how “child-safe” games should become.
“There are no clear -cut ways to protect children, many corporations / clients do not keep that in mind as a problem but more of an opportunity and they choose to capitalize on these,” Abad said.
As responsible game developers, individuals take it upon themselves to temper how they develop games, taking the liberties lessen blood in fight scenes and other small measures they can impose.
Abad admits there are also no code of ethics for game developers, or a creed which will guide or bind the industry to advocate child protection, it will be solely up to clients or the company which employs them.
“However, responsibility for child protection is shared, it does not only depend on game developers, parents play a larger role for this, as well as the community, when parents substitute gaming for parenting, thus starts our problem.”
Abad along with a majority of game developers, do not believe in censorship, as there will always be bad applications and even with published child-safe games, there will be slip ups which will endanger children ‘This is a reflection of our times, the games which kids and adults play have changed, the lines have blurred.”
Parents taking control
Meloy and a group of parents have banded together in December of 2023 to form “Club Quokka Gaming,” a children’s video game club in the Philippines which aims to digital safety for children.
“We have become a community of parents trying to provide a safe gaming environment for our kids. (however) we do not want to ban them from games entirely because there are just so many opportunities for positive experiences and learnings from playing games with the correct group of people and community.”
Meloy relayed, the idea was formed when her niece started to get bullied in school in 2022 and she found out that she had no one to play with in the Roblox application.
“I asked 15 friends who had kids who play the same application to join a group chat to help our kids play safe,” Meloy said.
The group chat allowed kids to interact with other players while under the supervision of their parents and guardians and soon enough the idea of a chat group grew into what Club Quokka Gaming is today.
The informal club aims to inform and update what kids are up to and is a venue for information dissemination for parents about the game’s kids engage in.
Meloy said “These are a group of parents and guardians taking control of the media they consume, we want parents to become aware of the games, applications and possible danger signs, this has become my advocacy.”
The newly formed online parenting group shares strategies on how to monitor children online using scheduling techniques or weekend only playtime or ban their children from certain games, once it is analyzed by the group.
Club Quokka Gaming, Meloy says, aims to make other parents aware of the dangers of leaving a child alone with a device and hopefully, become active guardians against the dangers of online gaming.
This story was produced under the #WebSafeandWise Media Fellowship by Probe Media Foundation Inc. (PMFI) and ChildFund Philippines. The views and opinions expressed in this piece are not necessarily those of PMFI and ChildFund Philippines.