Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Promoting Children’S Interests On The Internet: Regulation And The Emerging Evidence Base Of Risk And Harm, Brian O'Neill, Sonia Livingstone

Conference Papers

Advocacy for child protection online has tended to flow against the tide of a dominant liberal discourse concerning the internet which posits that either the internet should not be regulated or that it can’t actually be regulated at all. Regulatory trends in Great Britain, in Europe and in the wider international arena have promoted models of co- or self-regulation whereby industries themselves with varying degrees of partnership or oversight by relevant state agencies practice ‘light-touch’ regulation based on codes established within industry fora with minimalist prescriptions on content and with ultimate responsibility for risk exposure shifted to the end user. …