How can I prevent a child from accessing or coming across pornographic images and videos on the Internet? Or at least make it extremely difficult for him? Emmanuel Macron had given six months, in November, to "Internet players" to find the right formula. An emergency because a study by the Ifop institute revealed in 2017 a strong increase in the consultation of pornographic sites by minors (51% against 37% in 2013) and at an increasingly early age (14 years and 5 months in average).
The first response from Internet service providers such as SFR or Orange, child protection associations such as e-Enfance or the main Internet platforms such as Google or Facebook must be presented this Friday in the form of an “anti-porn” charter of commitments.
Notify parents
On the program: better inform parents to encourage them to activate and use parental control software, ban sponsored links leading to adult sites or even train smartphone sellers to warn parents of the risk of exposure of minors through to these devices.
Sufficient? "Yes, on the sole condition that all the players get involved," said Arthur Dreyfuss, president of the French Telecoms Federation, which represents the majority of Internet service providers (SFR, Orange, Bouygues but not Free). If smartphone manufacturers, search engines or social media, who don't have a position as clear as ours, don't do it and don't get involved, there will always be holes in the racket and everything will will be incomplete. "
Free software
These parental control software have been available free of charge from Internet service providers for more than a decade, but, Arthur Dreyfuss recognizes, they remain little used. “We therefore need more education and improve these solutions so that they are easier to configure and that parents can implement them in three clicks. "
The President of the Republic is in favor of setting up parental control by default, which would require adults to declare that they are over 18 in order to unlock full access to the various websites, including pornographic.
"Existing software filters pornographic sites very well but, without being a panacea, the solution to install them by default and in a mandatory manner is the right direction, judge Justine Atlan, general director of the e-Childhood association. We start from almost nothing and this would reverse the responsibility by asking a little effort to adults, who would just have to deactivate the control software if they wish to surf on pornographic content. "
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Access providers, but also Google, Apple, Facebook and others, are far from being as favorable. "This proposal is technically very complex to implement," says Arthur Dreyfuss. Before getting there, let's try to take the step that mobilizes the whole chain, and not just the access providers, to be effective. "
