What types of harmful content exist online, and what is the impact to children’s offline behaviour?

Background

Although there is already material evidence on the types of serious harms individuals encounter online, there still remain a number of emerging harms, where the evidence base is still yet to mature (e.g. epilepsy trolling, online animal abuse). SOH would like to close this significant gap in understanding the impact of encountering different types of serious harms online and understanding the best approaches to measuring the impact of the Online Safety legislation.

SOH highlights the importance of Media Literacy in the digital age and asks for further studies to uncover barriers to engagement as well as the effectiveness of DSIT programmes. This issue closely relates to Counter-Disinformation interventions, which requires evidence for its effect on bystanders, topic specific disinformation and what tools can be used to combat this issue.

Research on Safety Technology would greatly develop SOH’s understanding of the relationship that DSIT online safety objectives have with the technology market today. A primary focus lands on improving Age Assurance (AA) measures. This includes ensuring transparency and assessing opportunities for the sector.

Next steps

If you are keen to register your interest in working and connecting with DSIT Digital Technology and Telecoms Group and/or submitting evidence, then please complete the DSIT-ARI Evidence survey - https://dsit.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cDfmK2OukVAnirs.
Please view full details: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-for-science-innovation-and-technology-areas-of-research-interest/dsit-areas-of-research-interest-2024

Source

This question was published as part of the set of ARIs in this document:

DSIT Areas of Research Interest 2024 GOV UK

Related UKRI funded projects


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    Addresses harmful content online and impact on children's behavior with expertise in child safety measures.

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  • HORIZON-MSCA-2023-SE-01

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    The project investigates the impact of sharenting on children's online privacy and safety, aligning with the question on harmful online content and its impact on children's behavior.

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    Why might this be relevant?

    The project addresses media literacy and digital skills, which are related to understanding harmful online content, but does not directly focus on the impact on children's behavior.

  • How Much is Too Much? Leveraging Existing and Emerging Large-Scale Social Data to Build Robust Evidence-Based Policy for Children in the Digital Age

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  • Supporting the use of digital media in research with children and young people

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    Partially relevant as it focuses on protecting children online from predators and child abuse media, but does not specifically address the impact on children's offline behavior.

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    Funded by: Horizon Europe Guarantee