French Youth:
Online and Exposed

Emma is getting ready to start her research online for a presentation for her French class. She has just begun when her phone suddenly vibrates. She scrolls past several Instagram live streams, a reminder for her Italian lesson.... and a nude photo of a classmate, which she figures must have been posted without her permission. Disturbed, she closes the app and tries to get the image out of her mind by watching a YouTube video that a friend had shared with her. Finally she gets back to homework.

The wonders of social media are well known, as we stay connected with friends, expand our networks, access a plethora of cultural knowledge with close to no effort. Needless to say, the dangers are just as overwhelming, especially for teens and children. The problems of cyberviolence, inappropriate content, and privacy incursions remain a major point of concern for teens, children and parents. What are young people’s digital habits? What are the main risks they face? How can we make their online experience safe?

In order to answer these questions, Institut Montaigne collaborated with AXA Prévention and Dentsu Aegis Network, to carry out an opinion poll with 5,000 French respondents. It is partially based on a study carried out in the United States by the Pew Research Center. On the basis of this data, we developed ten proposals for teaching and supporting young people in their digital habits, and encouraging responsible behavior online.

Children and teenagers are generally aware of the risks that the Internet presents:

• 94% of young people aged 11 to 20 state that protecting their privacy online is important to them (88% for adults)
• 74% of them state that they sometimes or often realized they had encountered information that turned out to be fake
• the availability of inappropriate content is considered "serious" by 89% of 11- to 20-year-olds
• the same is true of revealing personal information, which is described as "serious" by 93% of young people polled.

Additionally, children and teenagers know of ways to protect themselves online: 63% of 11- to 20-year-olds say that they know how to protect their privacy on the Internet (74% of 18- to 20-year-olds), and 54% of them have already used tools to limit tracking of their online activity.

Overall, parents slightly underestimate their children’s access to inappropriate content:

• 40% of parents think their child has been exposed to violent content, whereas 47% of young people say this has happened at least once,
• 28% of parents think their child has been exposed to pornographic content (versus 36% of young people who say this has happened at least once),
• 21% of parents think their child has been exposed to racist, anti-Semitic, or homophobic content (versus 31% of young people who say this has happened at least once),
• 19% of parents think their child has been exposed to content encouraging them to engage in dangerous games (versus 30% of young people who say this has happened at least once).

Despite significant awareness-raising efforts by non-profit organizations and government authorities, there is a gap between what parents think is happening and what children are experiencing.

Acts of cyberviolence affect more than one in two young people (56%):

• 17% of young people say they have "received nude images they did not request" more than once
• 13% of young people have frequently been the victims of "rumors" (13%) and even of "threats"
• 5% of young people say that nude images of them have been put online without their permission

These phenomena particularly affect girls: our focus groups reveal that the most serious acts of violence most often concern sharing nude images of girls.

These are:

• regulatory: the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR),
• legal: the French "Computing and Freedoms" law of 1978,
• educational: protecting the personal data of young people attending school, including issues of personal data protection in the educational system, the "Internet Permit for Children", a French national program aiming to educate children and their parents about how to use the Internet safely and responsibly.

At the same time, over the past several years a large number of platforms managed by government authorities supporting victims of online violence have emerged.

• 3020: a hotline to handle bullying at school,
• "Net Écoute 0800 200 000": the national toll-free number for children and teenagers dealing with problems in their use of digital technology,
• La Brigade Numérique de la Gendarmerie: contact for the national police force, including instant messaging, available 24/7,
• Filsantejeunes.com (0 800 235 236): a service to answer young people's health questions,
• PHAROS (Platform for Standardization, Analysis, Comparison, and Direction of Identifications): a service for identifying illegal content and behavior online via www.internet-signalement.gouv.fr.

In addition to these various options, there are tools available directly on the platforms, such as the possibility to block users, or policies on hate speech of varying levels of strictness.

Despite — or due to — this multitude of options, more than 6 out of 10 parents say that they would not know which agency to turn to if their child were a victim of cyberviolence. The problem is therefore not a lack of options, but rather the complexity of those that exist.