The online world is an incredible place with so many places to visit and to learn. Nevertheless tools for good, can also be tools for evil. The reading resonated a lot with me because I totally agree on questioning why we release children and youth into “the Wild West” of virtual worlds without participating and guiding them along their virtual journeys.
As a parent and educator, I think it is very important to model for students how to engage and participate in the virtual world with ethics and citizenship. It’s interesting how it is often referred to as digital citizenship, yet really, it’s just about being a good person regardless if one is in a real or virtual world.
Without taking away the freedom of interacting and communicating on social media, there should be some sort of regulations in place on social media platforms to ensure the safety and security of our kids. As adults, we cannot dismiss technology as something for youth and leave them to figure it out on their own. They need our guidance and leadership. We would never let them travel around the world on their own without support, why would we let them do it online?
It is easy to say that since the countries of the world all have different laws and legislation regarding the Internet and social media, that it would be impossible to have regulations that would be global. But consider what happened to Volkswagon this past Fall. The large auto company was in a lot of trouble because of their diesel emissions cheating. There were groups in place, such as the U.S Environmental Protection Agency who discovered this betrayal and released the information to industry, government and the media. The outrage was worldwide and Volkswagon was forced to be accountable and fix the problem. Why can we not have some sort of agency that patrols the virtual world and ensures that certain standards are adhered to? When a platform does not follow standards, they will be held accountable to take responsibility and fix the problem in some way. Whether it be Canadian, American, European etc… the first world should show leadership in this area and model for the rest of the world acceptable behaviour and standards for all social media and gaming platforms.
To demonstrate such leadership, we need campaigns to get government, industry and community to work together to all lend their support. We need everyone (adults and children) in our society to be part of the solution. When our youth see us working together to set standards in their virtual worlds, they will understand that we are acting in their best interest, (even if they don’t agree). Only through our leadership and courage to tame the untamed virtual worlds and model will citizenship be considered just citizenship.