Viestintäministeri Suvi Lindén Inhope and Insafe North Regional Conference -tapahtumassa

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
Mr Rodriguez,

I am delighted to see so many experts in the field of child welfare, technology, government and industry together in this event. The topic of today is cooperation and coalition in the fight against illegal and harmful content on the Internet. Given the borderless nature of the Internet, it is crucial to exchange views on an international level. Therefore it is most important that all of you distinguished experts from outside the Finnish borders have seen the trouble of attending this conference.

Before sharing with you some of our practices and thoughts on this issue, I would like to thank Save the Children Finland, a member of the International Association of Internet Hotlines (Inhope), for organising this conference. I am very pleased to see how actively Save the Children is promoting child welfare issues here in Finland, also from the information society point of view and in the context of social media.

Promoting a safer Internet environment for children has for many years stood on the Finnish political agenda. During these years the main focus of our activities has differed in line with the demands of time. Some of the questions raised a few years ago have already been solved, while others still demand more thorough consideration. In addition to these, we are confronted with new challenges each year. Some of the newest issues raised are cyber-bullying and grooming. The most severe challenge is still nonetheless the protection of children from sexual abuse and the support of victims. These are topics which will be discussed here today with prominent experts in these fields.
The basic view of Finnish policy is that everybody should have access to various information society services and that the basic skills for using these services should be adequate. This is one of the objectives of our National Information Security Strategy, which was drawn up last year.

In order to achieve adequate skills, children must be taught continuously, and starting from an early stage, how to identify and be aware of the underlying principles of secure use of electronic services. They must be taught to understand the delicacy of spreading private information, for example in social networks, and they must be made aware of their own right to privacy and data protection. The ability to anticipate, identify and take precautions against risks can spare the child from many unpleasant surprises. The potential of various social networks is huge and children should be guided to use them wisely.

In addition to conquering the challenge of teaching children how to safely make the best use of different services provided by the ever evolving technology, we have quite recently become more aware of the need to change some of our own practices. Finns are known to be a silent nation. In many cases this is true if we refer to the older generations. When we, however, talk about the younger generation, this notion tends to turn upside down. Children are very talkative in different social networks. They just do not want to share their ideas and feelings with us, their parents.

This is why we have come to the conclusion that we need to make better use of the arenas where children tend to share their experiences. We need to be there where the children are. In other words we have to be part of the various social networks. Sometimes it might just be easier for the child to contact a reliable adult in the Internet, rather than ask from its own parents. The limen to share things that might even be embarrassing is way lower online than offline, and we have to react accordingly to this need. We have to be able to offer new solutions.

We all know the success stories of Habbo-Hotel and IRC-Gallery. These are social networks of huge user proportions, which have responded to the need of child support online. They both now support the work of an online youth center. Supporting this kind of action is an effective and logical way to spend our resources. It not only brings the support there where the children themselves are, but it also reaches out to a much wider percentage of children than traditional youth work can ever do.

Another important aspect is the way in which we adults act as an example to our children and support their well-being. Public discussions that have dwelled on the issue of illegal and harmful content on the Internet have until recently had only two different views of action. There are those who support blocking mechanisms and governmental guidance, and then there are those who think that the content of the Internet should be left as it is and should not be controlled in any way. Only recently have other thoughts been more emphatically raised, which support the actions of the users themselves.

We have seen signs of users showing responsibility and reacting to harmful or illegal content by reporting it to either to the police, the ISP’s, the providers of social networks or to the national hotline. I think that this kind of action should be supported and that the ways of reporting should be made as easy as possible. I also wish that the cooperation between the different parties, be they citizens, government representatives, child welfare organisations or which ever other instance, would work in a constructive way. We have to be open to new ideas in order to find the most effective ones.

An example of such constructiveness and innovation is the valuable work done by a single policeman. Mr Marko Forss, from the Helsinki Police Department, has shown an incredible sense of responsibility and courage by entering the world of IRC-Gallery and making a profile for himself. He has done this on his own initiative and in order to be better available to children who want to contact the police or just to ask questions from a reliable adult. My administrative sector has shown its appreciation by recognising Marko Forss’s work as a best practice model for cooperation (tunnustus vuoden yhteistyöteosta). I believe that extending this kind of work to other types of child support, is one of the most important and effective ways to help our children.

I want to point out one more initiative that we have found to work quite well. As I have already said many times, cooperation is of vital importance. An example of Finnish national cooperation and information sharing is the work of a Media Forum which I have set up in February last year. The Forum brings together 40 different stakeholders, reaching from child welfare organisations to public administration and industry. It acts as an open area for discussion and knowledge sharing between these stakeholders.

The idea of the Forum, which convenes four times a year and more often in smaller subgroups, is to discuss the role of media and the internet in the lives of young people; to suggest measures on how to improve the safety of the internet environment; to improve the common knowledge base by producing information material; and to discuss and support new self-regulation models. The Forum has, for example, produced material last year for parents, including guidance on different kinds of media usage for parents of children from different age groups.

The Forum has received acknowledgement for bringing stakeholders in this area together in a fashion, which no other instance has done before. I know that we can anticipate valuable work to be done by the Forum also in the future.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I would like to conclude my opening words with the most severe topic of this conference. I want to remind us all that behind the technology, behind different cooperation models and behind our shared wisdom of bringing up solutions and good practice examples, stand the most important subjects and reasons for our work: the children.

Sexual abuse of children has stood out as a growing problem for the last years. The amount of abuse material distributed in the Internet has increased considerably and has evolved into a criminal business worth hundreds of millions. Ongoing measures need to be strengthened and new ways have to be found in combating this phenomenon to the full.

Important work is already done at the European level by different parties involved in the Safer Internet projects. I am pleased that the European Commission has been so active in supporting Safer Internet work all around Europe and even beyond. Working together – both nationally and internationally – is the key to good practices and possible solutions.

With these words I would like to end my opening comments and wish you all constructive discussions and ideas of further development. Your work is truly appreciated!