'iParent: Embracing Parenting In The Digital Age' | Excerpt

Indian parents are in a unique position. Many of us are culturally conservative folks who refuse to talk to our children about online safety living in a country with appallingly low conviction rates for Internet- related crimes and yet we have the highest mobile data consumption rates in the world. Strangely, we do have a precedent for this odd situation: it’s akin to how we refuse to talk about sex but somehow ended up with one of the world’s biggest populations. Humour aside, this deafening cultural silence and low conviction rate make for a volatile situation highlighted by a frightening statistic: India has one of the highest rates of cyber harassment worldwide. 

Monica Lewinsky (remember her?) was Patient Zero of the cyberbullying scourge and says that she was the first person whose global humiliation was driven by the Internet. Lewinsky was twenty-two when the scandal broke, and two decades later, she is still defined by the stain on that blue dress. She is now driving a campaign to make the Internet a more humane place by asking some valid questions: when does this culture of humiliation become too much? And how do we support the Internet’s youngest users—our children—to filter through this smorgasbord of anonymous cruel posts, whispers, yikes, tweets, pokes and torment? 

Luckily, there is plenty we can do. 

1) Build Your Toolbox 

Building a toolbox of safe online practices is key to creating safe online experiences. Teach the kids to cherry- pick the people they follow and encourage them to keep their accounts private, a simple act that allows them infinitely greater control over their followers. If they have a public account, consider having them filter the information they release and as a policy, never mention their live location or address. If they are speaking to strangers online (and they probably are), encourage them to interact with an unknown person publicly first before letting them slide into DMs. Teach them to never accept and normalize abuse—a rude or creepy comment should result in an immediate block. Having these conversations and helping them build their toolbox is more effective than limiting their choice of platforms. 

2) Know the Law 

Recently, in a university hostel in Chandigarh, a first- year female student allegedly filmed secret videos of her female classmates in the common hostel washroom with the intention of circulating these videos. According to the chargesheet, the student was under pressure from a man with whom she had shared compromising photos of herself. He was blackmailing her with these photos and demanded nudies of other women in the hostel.8 Essentially, she was taking compromising photos of others because of her own compromising photos. While the investigation was underway at the time of writing this book, it’s abundantly clear that the matter only came to light because other students demanded action. This makes sense. If iGen is to live in this digital world, they will have to learn how to protect themselves in it. While India has a long way to go in terms of developing implementable cyber harassment and digital privacy laws, there is no need to assume that a cyberbully cannot be brought to justice. Provisions under Sections 66 and 67 of the Information Technology Act are particularly helpful and include: 

*Penalties for publication and transmission of obscene material, material containing sexually explicit acts, and material depicting children in sexually explicit acts.

*Printing, selling or advertising grossly indecent or scurrilous matter or matter intended for blackmail. 

*Making sexually charged remarks is considered sexual harassment.

*Violation of privacy.

*Criminal intimidation by anonymous communication. 

*Sending defamatory messages by email.

The uncomfortable truth is that as parents, we can’t be certain whether our children are being bullied or are cyberbullies themselves (remember that 52 per cent of Indian children admitted to bullying people over social media). Regardless, awareness of the law is crucial. 

3) Become a Resource 

While talking to iGen for this book, I came across one too many kids who, after facing bullying online, turned to strangers in a chat room for comfort, assuming they would never find support at home. It’s a dangerous idea— having a vulnerable child lurking in chat rooms looking for a shoulder to cry on. If your kid frequents anonymous sites, it’s important to ask them to explain their reasons. Perhaps they are dealing with a difficult issue and looking for a safe space to talk. Become that safe space, especially around topics of sexuality and bullying. Many of these topics are uncomfortable, but resources like ‘So You Got Naked Online’, funded by the European Union, can help (https://swgfl.org.uk/assets/documents/so-you-got- naked-online.pdf). 

4) Push for Change 

Social media sites are among the most profitable companies in the history of the world. Given that they are making money off our data, it’s not unreasonable to ask that greater social responsibility be embedded in their business models. Almost all social media allow children and should be in investing in more ‘switched on’ moderators and better reporting tools. After all, many of the titans of the Internet, including Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg and Parag Agarwal, are parents too.

The product design built into each of their super successful products is based on behaviour modification, and surely, they can be applied to persuade users to behave better. Sometimes, all it takes is a simple feature; for example, an anti-cyberbullying app witnessed 167 per cent increase in kids sending encouraging messages to one another just by controlling when they received digital rewards like virtual confetti!

Sooner or later, companies must be financially incentivized to be involved in social change. The signs are already there—FB stock fell by 8 percent when the company was seen as not doing enough for the Black Lives Matter movement in the US. This is a good sign. The Internet is no longer distinct and separate from the physical world; the lines have now blurred. We all live online, and it’s long overdue for the Internet to be managed as thoughtfully and with as much accountability, as our roads, schools and hospitals. If we don’t allow bullying in our homes and schools, why should we stand by as it happens online? 

Excerpted with permission from iParent: Embracing Parenting in the Digital Age by Neha J Hiranandani, Penguin Random House