The Republic of Srpska - Ministry of the Interior


Criminal Police Administration

Unit for High-Tech Crime

NEWS


Protecting children online

,09.02.2022
Novost slika

9th February, International Safer Internet Day, represents an opportunity to remind the public about our obligation to protect children and young people on the Internet and to prevent negativity towards the young on social networks. Therefore, the police officers will hold lectures in elementary schools all over the Republic of Srpska, in order to raise awareness of the children and adults on potential dangers on the Internet, ways to protect themselves and whom to address in case of any abuse. During the previous year, the Ministry has recorded 10 criminal offences of Exploitation of Children for Pornography, 4 criminal offences of Introducing Pornography to Children and 1 criminal offence of Using a Computer Network for the Commission of the Criminal Offence of Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of a Child. The digital age is characterized by the mass use of the Internet in which an individual, starting from a child, holds in his hands a device with huge possibilities that can be very useful because it provides general connectivity, abundant inflow of relevant data, data processing and similar. However, it also has its downsides, because using social networks has its advantages and disadvantages. The most popular networks among children and young people include "Instagram", "Snapchat", "YouTube" and "Tik-Tok". The social network "Tik-Tok" is particularly popular among children and young people, it is designed to create and share short video content, and according to the business policy of the Tik-Tok platform, users of this social network cannot be persons under 13 years of age. Practice has shown that this platform has become a suitable ground for setting challenges among users (most often children) that are rather bizarre. The bizarre challenge on Tik-Tok called "blackout" is not the first challenge of this type that appeared on one of the social networks and resulted in the loss of a human life. In the past period, we have witnessed similar challenges such as "Blue Whale", "Broken Skulls" and similar ones. A worrying fact is the widespread use of this application by children and young people. This is confirmed by the tragic events that occurred in the region. In order to avoid the downsides, to control the content that the child consumes from this and other platforms, we recommend a combination of these two segments - parental supervision and technical protection options: -