 Y cyfgau cyfgau eich ddysgu ddigonwyd o gyfer M rotation 9921 yn y ffordd Gyllian Martin a fwy respect i gyfyrd gen i gydym lleiwxio cyrraedd ar fwyngh agongymwy o gyfnodurau. Llyrgellfaeth flynywgol eich ddegwadau renqiwyr yn ddegwadau. Rwy'n gwybod, cyffredinidog, wrth gwrs, o bryd i haf y ffordd ddegwadau gan rai cyfgwyd gan gofyniaeth. Rwy'n gwybod i'r cyffredinidog i gyd, Gilydd. I want to start this debate off by saying thanks to an anonymous young woman. After weeks of flattery, cajoling and wearing down of resistance, she sent a semi-nude photograph of herself over Snapchat to a much older boy. Within half an hour or so, that photo was saved on the phones of multitudes of people in the area. She could see it being screen-grabbed, she could see it being shared and of course she panicked. I want to thank her because she was brave and she did the best thing that she could possibly do. She told her mother and together they went to the police to report the incident and then they went to the press to raise awareness for other families and that girl was just 11 years old. We all know stories of online bullying and shaming, we've seen it, we've maybe had children who've experienced it, we've maybe consoled a friend who's been through it, but over the past few years it's taken on a new dimension that's becoming normalised. I've been quoted as saying that the practice of young people asking for nude photographs to be sent to them or sending unsolicited nude photographs themselves to others is endemic and I do not use this word lightly. In talking to many young people about this for over two years now, I'm convinced that we have an issue that could affect the mental wellbeing of many young people and influence how they form healthy relationships. This is not just a behavioural issue that should be tackled solely in schools. Most of the image-sharing happens out with school and the consequences of it make school difficult for the victims. Guidance teachers that I know tell of an issue that is resolved by home time, escalating overnight online and then coming back into the school doors the next day, increased intensity and seriousness. PSE can and should raise these issues but it cannot operate in isolation. I was on the BBC this morning and my interview was trailed by the question, should schools do more to make teens cyber resilient? I think that we should all do more. I'm looking to schools to take full responsibility. It's not just unfair, it's unrealistic and it just wouldn't work. Parents, I believe, are not as aware as they could be about what's happening. They will be shocked to learn that the practice has been thought of as no big deal amongst many young people. Certainly, I was completely in the dark about it and I have worked with teenagers since mobile phones became everyday items, much less became mini computers with apps and cameras. I have spoken to hundreds of parents about this, some of whom I know are debating along with me today and to call in the phrase, we don't know the half of it. Indeed, it was my friend and colleague Christina McKelvie who first raised the issue of revenge porn in this Parliament as a result of being made aware of it by her own teenager at the time and she got legislative action on it in the form of the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm Act. The sharing of nude photos isn't just about young people exploring their sexuality, it can be about control. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that it's just boys asking girls to share their bodies online with them. One of the most shocking conversations that I had with a teenager told me of a girl who was one of the leaders of a friendship group who was holding nude photographs of her friends so that she could control them. If she didn't do what she wanted, she could deploy them to shame her so-called friends and these photographs were a bullying tool. Talk about mean girls. What can parents do? Maybe take a lesson from me on how not to react. My first reaction on hearing this kind of practice was a fairly primal one. I've got a 14-year-old daughter who won't thank me for mentioning her and I'm not going to lie. I began to relate to the queens and kings of Grimm's fairy tales, who built towers to keep their princesses in until they were adults. To have an effective impact, parents have to tread a thin line between allowing their growing children a degree of privacy that recognises that they are developing as adults and being aware of what they could be subjected to online. The best way is that most things is to talk and, most importantly, give space to listen. It will possibly be the most difficult conversation that you have with your kids, but it will mean that you can cancel the delivery of bricks for building the tower. I don't believe that further legislation is the way forward. We already have sufficient laws, but in talking to many young people I'm convinced that there's a lack of awareness that in soliciting naked photographs or sending unsolicited photographs to themselves that they are breaking the law. It is, as we know, an offence to possess, send, make, take, distribute or show in decent photographs of children. That means that the person taking the photo and the person who received it is breaking the law. If it gets forwarded on, that recipient is also breaking the law. We know that those images can end up anywhere. Once it's off your phone and away, you have no control over where it ends up and it can be online forever. The impact that this practice could have on a young person's future is obvious. Our best result would be to empower our young people to refuse to be pushed into sharing images of themselves that they would not be happy to be shared widely in the first place. I would like us to get to a situation where young people feel empowered enough to call out others who pray on others to share or send unsolicited photographs, not easy when you're a teenager. The most effective action will be that that comes from young people themselves. I was told repeatedly by a teen that I know that they will not respond to adults standing in front of them telling them how to behave online. That's why I am delighted that students from North East Scotland College Television Production Department, who is in the gallery today, and representatives from Young Scots' Digi Eye campaign have been working to produce two films written by young people, four other young people, about sexting and nude image sharing. Members and their guests are going to be the first to see the two films, one is called Cyber Attraction, the other is Over Exposure, at reception in Parliament tonight, and from tomorrow they'll be on Young Scots' website to be viewed and shared by anyone. Teachers and parents can use them as a way to start that tricky but vital conversation, and I hope that they'll be watched and shared by thousands of young people and spark conversations that empower them. I hope that those realistic, well-produced dramas—I had to say that, that's my own old college—will get us all talking about consent, self-esteem and resilience. Ten years ago, when I was a college lecturer, I took 12 students who were mostly late teens on an exchange trip to Finland. On our last night, we went to a nightclub. I sat my beer on the bar and I went up to dance. I was on the dance floor less than a minute when one of my male students ran after me with my beer and gave me a right talking to about never leaving my drink unattended. Why? Because his generation had it drummed into them, they must always be vigilant in case their drink was spiked. In fact, they all laughed at me for being so naive. I would like to think that, with a concerted effort of us all talking about the dangers of sexting and image sharing, we'll get to a point where young people will be protecting themselves and their friends in the same way they do over spiked drinks, including in a vulnerable and dangerous position by sexting will be so 2018. That change will be led by young people. I note for everyone that I ask those in the gallery not to either clap or cat-call or shout, if you don't mind. Perhaps at the end you can show your appreciation to everyone who takes part in the debate. I ask those who are taking part in the debate to be quite strict with their timing, because there is a lot of people who want to speak, and I don't want to leave anyone out because time is limited. I have absolutely no more than four minutes of speeches, please, and I have a thinly cast and followed by Ruth Maguire. First, I must thank Gillian Martin for securing this important debate. I would like to take the opportunity to thank my young helper, Callum Mackay, for putting together his first speech for this debate and the research that is done on underage gambling online. As a parent myself, with two children growing up in the midst of the cyber revolution, this topic and our obligation to educate our children online is one of serious concern. Who should take responsibility? For social media companies to continually just shrug their shoulders is not good enough. The lack of action on developing safeguards fundamentally lies at the centre of many online problems. We must not and cannot sit in our hands waiting for action. Those companies turning a blind eye must realise that their lack of action is akin to allowing the exploitation of our children and young people. As we relentlessly accelerate into digital world, the reach of social media influencers becomes more pronounced. Children are driven by peers and the desire to emulate their modern role models, increasingly exposing them to online danger. It is therefore also the duty of those influencers to set a precedent. Although that means holding to account for their actions such as the well-known YouTube star Logan Paul, who recently posted a video showing graphic imagery surrounding suicide victims to 16 million followers, we must remember our duty as adults should be to react and dispute such actions without dropping to that level. As we have seen when many so-called responsible adults went on to send a series of death threats to Mr Paul, setting examples and ensuring that internet companies do the right thing are important issues. However, perhaps the best way forward is through empowering our children on matters concerning their online behaviour. As well as creating legislation, we can bring about change by supporting charities such as the Rotary Peace project, to facilitate and support school children through life-skilled-based programmes that are student-to-student delivered. The goal of the organisation is to empower the next generation to develop their own ideas on the challenges that the 21st century produces. The 21st century challenges, including how to avoid making poor decisions online, making the right, but often the most difficult decision to make to take. It is important to note that the internet has exceeded and given youth a voice and therefore influence responsibility greater on many levels than any of our past generations, responsibility that they did not previously hold within society. Young people have the ability to mould, learn and adapt themselves to stay on top of whatever the evolution nature of the online industry is, but they need our support. Other online dangers and questions surround increasing prevalence and normalisation of gambling fundamentals through online gaming. This ubiquitous presence has consumed the entire industry, leaving children as young as 11, exposed to the pressure of ideologies such as pay-to-win. For example, skin betting, whereby players bet with in-game items. The Gambling Commission reports that 11 per cent participation among 11 to 16-year-olds, with the level as high as 20 per cent of boys claiming to have done so. However, like everything with great power comes great responsibility and is evident that many children lack the self-control needed to recognise and avoid the exploitative nature of modern online games and the potential disastrous consequences that that can follow. While now we have sat back and handed the responsibility of children to game developers, without society seeking a framework to prevent exploitation and potential for the normalisation of gambling-like activities. In many cases, online game developers continue to distance themselves from the debate on the basis that those concerns are outwith their responsibility or jurisdiction. Avoidance to voluntarily regulate is tantamount to them denying their moral responsibilities, but their game, however, indirectly or directly may contribute to our worrying underage gambling rates. In order to safeguard our children, we must not only look to the online industry to make changes through voluntary or legislative action. Our responsibilities as politicians and parents also lie in empowering our young people, allowing them to make the best, right and most appropriate choices for themselves and their ever-increasing online activity. Can I just say at this point that if people take more than their time, it could penalise other people? In fact, with the list, I have stopped people from speaking at all. I call Ruth Maguire to be followed by Mary Fee. I would like to start by thanking Gillian Martin for bringing this important topic to the chamber and for all the work that she is doing on it. I am sure that Gillian will not mind me saying that, for people of our generation who grew up in a world very different to the world inhabited by our young folk today, the sheer scale of this topic can be quite overwhelming. It affects every constituency in every part of Scotland, young people of both sexes and all sexual orientations and spans across several age groups from barely teenagers to young adults. It affects people of all classes, all backgrounds and whatever their other interests and aspirations are. Although the immediate impact is on our young folk, it is important that we recognise that it impacts on all of us. We have all got young people in our lives who we care about and want the best for. For current generations of young people, where the divide between the real world and the online world is increasingly brilliant, it is only to be expected that aspects of their romantic lives take place in the digital world, too. We are not going to be able to change that. Teenagers have always fallen in love with and wanted to have sex with one another, and they will continue to do so. In a healthy and respectful context, fair play to them is part of growing up. Although we cannot and do not want to stop hormones raging and romances blossoming, we really have to do all that we can to raise young folks' awareness of the new dangers and risks that go along with all of that in a digital age. We will not ever be able to protect our young people from unrequited love or a broken heart, but we can do our best to protect them from the mental anguish of seeing intimate images of themselves appear in public or ending up with sexual offence charges on their record. A big point of having an impact on that is about understanding how teenagers' brains work and the pressures that they are under. Recent research into the teenage brain has shown that there is a heightened risk taking during adolescence. At the same time, the influence of peer pressure also peaks. Quite a combination that I think can help us to understand why our young people behave in ways sometimes and take risks that most of us would find utterly terrifying and would never think of doing. The example that Professor Sarah Jane Blakemore gives—I recommend her to talk on the subject to anyone who is interested—is of an intelligent 13-year-old girl who knows all about the health risks of smoking. If she is out at the weekend and her friends offer her a cigarette, she is very likely to smoke it. That is because neuroscience shows us that the risk for a teenager of being ostracised from their peer group completely outweighs any of the other risks that they would think about in terms of the health risks of smoking. Viewing sexting and the sharing of intimate images in that context helps us to understand the pressures that our young people are dealing with. If it is seen as something that everyone else is doing, if it is presented as a normal part of a relationship that is validating, the pressure must be immense for them. At the same time, the area of the brain that is associated with self-regulation and judgement is still developing, and teenagers are so prone to taking risks. For me, it feels like if we stand here emphasising career consequences, legal implications, bullying, mental health repercussions, that it is not going to be good enough, it is not going to do what we want it to do. In fact, I am really quite sure of that. I see that time is ending and I do not want to overrun. I echo Gillian's sentiments about working with young people themselves, really listening to what they tell us will help to keep them safe, well and happy. I call Mary Fee, followed by Tom Arthur. I thank Gillian Martin for bringing this debate to the chamber today and allowing us to debate the very important issue of cyber resilience. Without doubt, the internet has been one of the greatest inventions in our history. It connects the world in many ways and offers many opportunities to all our citizens and our communities, and the benefits of being online are far reaching. However, as with all things, there are many disadvantages. Despite the opportunities of the internet, there are risks that can affect almost everyone, especially young and vulnerable people. Children and young people today are connecting with each other in a wide range of ways that were not available to any other generation before. As such, we need to encourage open conversations with young people about the dangers of the internet and of social media. Too many children and young people are being exposed to bullying and pressures online, resulting in quite serious implications for mental health and social stigma. Raising awareness of the career consequences and the legal implications are a positive step that should deter perpetrators from bullying and trolling online. The damaging and shocking increase in sexual offences committed by young people shows that we need a connected approach between Government, schools, parents, charities, youth organisations and, most importantly, social network companies to tackle the scourge of sharing private and intimate details between young people and so-called sexting. The DJI campaign by Young Scot is a fine example of warning young people about the dangers of the internet and promoting safety and resilience in dealing with peers online. The Equalities and Human Rights Committee recently produced the report, It's Not Cool to be Cruel, Prejudiced-based Bullying, and there are too many big words here, Presiding Officer. I'm very sorry. Prejudiced-based bullying and harassment of children and young people in Scotland in July of last year. During the evidence sessions, we heard from young people and youth organisations that more and more young people, especially girls, are subjected to sexual harassment online. I would encourage everyone in the chamber and everyone who listens to the debate to read that report. I can guarantee that you will be shocked to hear the wide-ranging harassment that young people are facing online, not just in our schools. We need to be far more proactive as a society to encourage young people to become more cyber-resilient and to encourage them to have open conversations when they have been subjected to cyber-bullying or harassment. We all have a role to play in ensuring that our young people are safe and can enjoy the benefits—the real benefits—that the internet can bring, while at the same time ensuring their safety. Debates such as this one tonight are an important step in raising awareness. I close by once again thanking Gillian Martin for bringing this debate to the chamber tonight. I call Tom Arthur to be followed by Tavish Scott. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I would like to begin by thanking my colleague Gillian Martin for bringing this important debate to the chamber on this, as I understand it, safer internet day 2018. As my colleague Ruth Maguire made the point, this is a huge issue, and I would note the contributions that we have had so far, which have very much focused on the dangers of image-sharing. I intend to focus my remarks on some of the broader issues that I suggest are pertinent to cyber-resilience. Before doing so, I would like to echo the point that the key is empowering young people and working with young people. That can start at home. I think that teaching the responsible use of the internet should be as much a role of a parent or a caregiver, such as advising a child of the dangers of road traffic or the railways or the dangers of water and electricity. The things that I recall from my childhood are just the basic skills that you learn about how to stay safe in the world, and we have to adapt for the world that we are in now, where the internet is so pervasive and is only going to become more so. I would say that a balanced approach is required, because just as when we are bringing up kids, we cannot insulate them and wrap them in cotton wool and isolate them from the world. We cannot put them in a tower as much as I am sure that a parent wants to. With the internet, we cannot cut children off on the internet, we cannot cut them off from use, because it is such a vital skill and such a necessary skill for the jobs of the future. It is important that this generation of digitally native people are allowed to develop these skills naturally. The balanced approach is correct. I would note some of the excellent resources that are out there, the UK Safer Internet Centre education pack for parents and carers, the Young Scots DGI and, of course, what Police Scotland provides. What I would like to focus on is some of the broader issues with cyber resilience, because one of the things that strikes me now in any aspect of life, whether it be in the workplace, whether it be in family, is that we are often sitting with these devices next to us, our mobile phones and we check them and we recheck them. We are constantly looking to see what is happening on Twitter, what is happening on Facebook, what is happening on other social media platforms. We live a very distracted life and it impacts upon our relationship with other people. It impacts upon our capacity to sleep. Do we really need a phone at our bedside? I remember as a kid growing up, my mother refused to allow me to have a games console until I was 11 years old. I begged and begged for Christmas that I could get one, because she was convinced that sitting in front of the TV would not be a good idea at all and I should be out playing. I do not know what she would think if I was growing up at five or six years old and I could have a handheld phone with 10 times the power of a Playstation that was then and I accessed this abundance of information. The question about how we relate all of us, both children, young people and adults, to the internet and information that it provides. Cyber resilience skills are also about, for example, being able to identify fake news, misinformation and scams. Those skills are incredibly important. I think that all funding that comes down to the skill of critical thinking. It is incredibly important that we think about cyber resilience that is incorporated as well. With the time that is remaining, we also have to look into the future. It is an excellent briefing from Bernardo's Highlights. There are opportunities and risks. However, as we move forward, the internet is going to become more and more a part of our life. The internet of things is augmented and virtual reality as well. It will be for the children of today and will be in the future working alongside robots and artificial intelligences in the workplace, and our bodies may indeed be cognitively hands with machines and computers. We look at the coming revolution of technology in the future decades. It is important to remember that our brains are not changing. We are still subject to the same risks and dangers that we always have been. It is important that we have that much broader concept of cyber resilience as well. I once again want to thank Gillian Martin for bringing that motion to the chamber. Gillian Martin's thought-provoking and indeed challenging remarks this evening brought three points to me. First, on mental health. Secondly, on relationships. And thirdly, and maybe above all, on resilience of young people. Because for many of us today who did—I know that it seems a long time ago—now go through childhood ourselves, the resilience to deal with what was going on in the classroom or in a wider social setting was easier because these things called mobile phones didn't exist. There's no two ways about it. We all had our challenges, but they are but nothing compared to the challenge that my kids go through around school or around post-school life now with what it is. Finlay Carson is right about the power of major corporates who have a very, very major role to play in how our young people grow up today. Are we doing enough about it? I am not so sure that we hold those people to the fire in the way in which we could. Gillian Martin is right about resilience. She is right about the importance of measures that we can take to address that. Part of that challenge is for people of a certain generation who are keeping up to date with the technology and understanding it. I suspect that much of the work that needs to be carried out is as much about helping parents as it is in the many sensible contributions that are being made across the chamber today about helping young people in schools at home and in other youth club environments. For parents, that is without doubt pretty scary stuff. I want to highlight just three measures tonight, three initiatives that have taken place in Shetland, because I think that this is as much a debate about what can be done as to analyse the problem that others across the chamber have done very sensibly this evening. The Shetland child protection committee has done a huge amount of detailed work in this area over the past number of years. Just in the past number of months, virtually safe, virtually sound, youth conferences have been held across many schools in Shetland. The important point here is that it is young people who have designed the courses, young people who have talked to each other, young people who have looked at what is available and how best to take that knowledge and to take those topics into workshops so that their peers can learn. Not people my age, not people wearing uniforms or people who come from different agencies, but young people themselves taking the initiative there. That is at the heart of why those youth conferences have been so successful. Most S1 pupils across the islands have attended now a child exploitation and online protection safety workshop. Again, secondary six pupils, secondary six young people have been trained in delivering those internet safety sessions in schools and new materials supported by some of the initiatives that take place across Scotland have been made available to keep that training up-to-date and specific to real-life situations. Finally, the school parent councils, again in many years as Shetland has arranged for internet awareness sessions, aimed not just at children but also at parents as well. As Karen Fraser, the vice-chair of our mobile phone and internet safety committee, that is a sub-committee of the CPC in Shetland, said the other week, the workshop is about staying safe online and it focuses on bullying and the effects it has on everyone, victims, the bullies and the bystanders. It raises awareness about the risks associated with internet use and explores with participants issues that affect them. One final thought, there is a really important book that the local library in Llewick are using, the Shetland library are using, called chicken clicking. It is actually aimed at three-and-four-year-olds, but it is a dark, dark story, a scary story indeed about online troubles. I thought the point about this book is that while it is written and aimed at three-and-four-year-olds, it can be read by young people of a much older age than preschool three or fours. That, to me, is the effect of looking innovatively at how solutions can be found to help young people in those most trying of times. I got distracted there and let you go way over time. I would like to start my speech by paying tribute to Gillian Martin for securing debating time for this, what is a very important issue. As a mother of young teens myself, this issue is something that I have given quite a bit of thought to recently. As has been mentioned already, children today are clearly growing up in a very different environment to the one that my generation did. I cannot be the only person in this chamber who is very glad that Facebook did not exist when they were 17, as I am. When I tell my children that I did not even get a mobile phone until I was in my 20s, they just sort of stare at me and they do not really know what to say. I do not think that they can quite comprehend that idea of a pre-mobile, a pre-internet world, that idea that you do not have a whole computer or access the internet just in your pocket. Our lives are now partly lived online, with all the benefits, all the challenges and all the dangers that that brings for both children and for adults alike. It is obviously children that are most at risk from the potential dangers. It is young teens that are thought to be the most at risk from activities. I will focus specifically on one that is known as sexting. Kate Burrell is an education team co-ordinator. It is called SEOP, which is a command of the national crime agency. She said that working with young people, they were finding that sexting increasingly feels like the norm in terms of behaviour in their peer group. Although I am not sure that teenagers would recognise the term that we use of sexting, they are probably calling it something like nude selfies or dodgy pics. However, that normality of that sort of practice is certainly the impression that I received when I visited a local high school quite recently. I had a bit of time and I spoke to a group of S5 girls. I brought up this subject to ask them what they thought was this was something that was happening. They just looked at me and they were like, yes, and then they proceeded to give me loads of examples of where this had happened like last week and what happened to so-and-so. It is very normal. There are lots of different examples of it. One particular thing is called snaking. That is where usually a boy befends a girl and then asks for pictures or puts pressure on her to produce pictures, then he distributes them to his friends and then even posts them online. When you speak to teenagers, they can all give you an example of where this had happened. It is probably more prevalent than we realise. I think that it is going on all around us. Those pictures can be around the school with quite horrible effects, literally within half an hour, obviously with having quite devastating consequences for the teenagers concerned. Girls are reporting more instances of being pressured to obviously send those pictures and pressure is heaped on them with what I remember has been quite familiar insults. If you do not send the pictures, you are frigid, but if you do send the pictures, then you are easy. There is no way to win in that scenario for girls, as usual. However, because it seems so normal, because it seems as if everybody is doing it, it can be hard to resist that pressure and easy not to think about the consequences. As a parent, I have spoken to my teens about this in an attempt to show them that they can talk to me about these things and obviously to give them space and time to think about this situation before they might be faced with it. We need to educate children about the risks and offer them support if and when they might need it. One of my friends is a teacher, she is still a teacher now, she has been a teacher for 20 years and based on some of the things that she has seen over the years on mobile phones, her advice to me when I got pregnant was never get your children a smartphone until they are at least in their 20s. I am not sure that that is the solution that we are looking for but I do understand the sentiment behind that. Teens talking to teens is clearly the way forward. The short films that Gillian Martin has mentioned today that are being promoted by Young Scott are certainly part of the solution. Before I call Mr Whittle, there are still a few members who wish to speak in the debate. I will accept a motion without notice under rule 8.14.3 to extend the debate by up to 30 minutes. I would invite Gillian Martin to move a motion without notice. The question is that the debate to be extended by up to 30 minutes. Are we all agreed? That is agreed. I therefore call Brian Whittle to be followed by Rona Mackay. An excellent decision and we are all sitting comfortably. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and can I refer members to my register of interest in that I am a board member of the West of Scotland NSPCC. I would like to start by also adding my thanks to Gillian Martin for once again securing time in this chamber to raise awareness of the dangers that being online can pose, especially among the younger communities. I know that that is something that she has continued to champion in this place. Without a doubt, the internet and the ease of online access has so many benefits in learning education and communication. That is a fact that I do not think that we should gloss over. As a tool used properly, it can open up the universe and transport us to places limited only by an imagination. Recently, with my youngest as part of her school project, we have stood on the deck of the Titanic and we have visited it, visited that ship in its watery grave. We have come face to face with Titanabola, a prehistoric snake that is estimated to be up to 50ft long and weighing in it over a ton. As an educational tool, its potential is almost limitless. However, we are all too aware of the dangers that can lurk online from the vulnerable and the unaware, with online bullying through to much more sinister issues. It is clear that we have struggling to stay ahead of the curve. To help you out, I remember getting my first mobile phone when I was 32 years old and having just retired from athletics, my employer handed me the phone and I thought I had absolutely made it. It was akin to carrying a brick around with me. At that time, my oldest daughter was young and I had no need to even think about her cybersecurity. We are all on a few years and my middle daughter starts to get to grips with the internet. I will again have no need to worry about social media. I now have a nine-year-old and she has one of my old smartphones attached to her mother's contract, which costs buttons. She now has access to the internet, social media and her friends whenever she has her phone. It is great for me because I can facetime her breakfast time and in the evenings, but there is always that lurking threat of online abuse. I now have grandchildren at the age of five and six who can do things with an iPad that baffle me and watch something on the iPad and all of a sudden with a swish of a finger. I have lost control of my television as their viewing preferences appear on the screen. Perhaps that is part of the issue here, that technology is moving faster than some of us are learning. We are not keeping up, we are falling behind and therefore struggling to understand the safety issues that online develop. To that end, I commend the NSPCC programme, Be Share Aware, where it offers advice on how to keep our children safe online. As it points out, we are fine talking to our children about crossing the road, bullying or talking to strangers, but we are less likely to discuss staying safe in the digital world about social networks and apps and games that our children are using. As I have mentioned, that is something to do with our own understanding of the digital world. While we are on the subject, I mention a slight bugbear of mine in that computer games come with an age recommendation on them for a reason. I see too many youngsters playing computer games for 18 plus and I think that we all need to be a bit more aware. Online bullying is a pretty new problem, but one that I think most of us in this place are all too aware of. Make a comment or post a speech or, God forbid, make a mistake in this chamber and it is like jackals around the wounded wilder beast, yet we accept that as a hazard of our job. I wonder if we really should and if we are normalising that kind of behaviour. We, as supposed adults, will deal with that in the main, although I suspect that few will go unaffected in some way by that kind of ritual attack. If that is our children, the effects can be much more profound and longer lasting. That is abusive behaviour. With child-line reporting a 12 per cent rise in cyberbullying counselling sessions, can I commend the NSPC for the work that they do in schools, helping primary schools to recognise abuse in all its guises? As I have said before, many children who are being abused do not recognise that they are being abused, especially online. Can I finish by reinforcing the point that our children's safety online is all of our responsibilities, as others have said. We need to be aware of what they are accessing and what their activity online is, and we need to be unpopular sometimes as the front-line internet police and say no to certain acts, games and social media. It can be as simple as an on-going conversation talking to our children. Now wouldn't that be a breakthrough? I'll tell you what would be a breakthrough if people would listen and keep their speeches under four minutes. People are likely to lose out on this and have their own contributions cut down. It's not fair to colleagues. I call Rona Mackay to be followed by Daniel Johnson. I'd like to thank Gillian Martin for bringing this important debate to the chamber today and for all the work that she's done on the subject. As we've heard from speeches across the chamber, young people today are under so much more pressure than my generation was growing up. My childhood was spent playing, going to school, watching TV or swimming. In my teens, I spent endless hours on the phone to my best friend, much to my mum and dad's frustration as she only lived next door. Of course, there were no mobile phones, internet, Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, and life was simpler of that, I have no doubt. Our parents told us not to talk to strangers, and that was the extent of the personal safety messages that we got. Home for most of us was a safe, secure place where what happened in the playground with friends stayed in the playground. Now young people are contactable 24 hours a day, and despite our best efforts, this is largely their world, their relationship with cyberspace and their own virtual reality. It's estimated that 69 per cent of 12 to 15-year-olds own a smartphone, and at 16 that percentage jumps to 90 per cent. This much access to photo and video sharing technology, combined with hormones and curiosity, has created the perfect storm for sexual imagery and cyberbullying. Studies have found that the majority of teenagers think that sexting is normal and harmless. That is shocking and scary. Without intervention and education, the teenagers who are storing and sharing this content begin to view others as sexual objects. Overtine psychologists have seen that those thoughts lead to a lack of empathy, an increase in anger and an increase in sexual aggressive crimes. Unfortunately, we are already seeing this, as Gillian mentioned in our motion. In four years, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has seen cases of a child committing a sexual crime against another child, rising by a troubling 34 per cent. For the young people who send sexual images, our objective is not to shame them for their decisions. Our goal is to understand the driving motivation behind their behaviour. Remember that we created the world that they are living in. Social scientists have found that many young people share explicit materials of themselves in the search for social validation and accept from their peers as Ruth Maguire outlined. However, receiving a negative response can have catastrophic consequences. The NHS has reported that cyberbullying increases the risk of suicide by 30 per cent. What can be done about that? First, we must accept that resilience does not mean simply telling children to avoid this behaviour, because that will not work. While children, parents and teachers need to be aware of the ramifications of those choices, we must remember that resilience is built by the way that we respond to opposition and difficulty. We have a responsibility to provide young people with resources that teach them healthy ways to manage their sexuality and self-esteem. There are an increasing number of resources that can help to have heard about them today—the Young Scots initiative DGI, the international justice mission do good work, the Scottish Government's cyber resilience programme, and they are all helpful to try to stem that. On internet safety day, I urge social media sites to take more responsibility by tightening up their security rules and practice. In my view, it is their moral responsibility to do so. This is a difficult issue to resolve, but we must resolve it. It is impossible to predict exactly what will help every child in Scotland, but we must take action. Even taking action on behalf of the wellbeing of one child is worth taking. The children of Scotland deserve to have wonderful lives, and by making sure that they are cyber resilient, we can help them to stay safe in this world that we, as adults, have created. Daniel Johnson, followed by Liam Kerr. I, too, would like to thank Gillian Martin, not just for bringing forward what is undoubtedly a very important debate to the chamber this evening, but also for reassuring me that I am not the only one who would like to construct a very tall tower. The only thing that I would like to clarify is what age can we safely lock them up in. It is five to young, because that is my instinct. However, our children are growing up in a world where technology is just part of the world. It is not something different, it is not something other. It is part of their everyday existence and part of their futures, too. Indeed, it was something that was underlined to me when I watched my eldest daughter, when she was just two, go up to our television screen and try to swipe it. It just underlined for me how she perceived technology and how what she understood she could expect from technology. It was just part of her experience that she expected to see a screen and be able to interact with it. That is, in a sense, the perspective that we need to be looking at. In some ways, the debate is summed up a little bit in combination of what Ruth Maguire said in Gillian Martin. Teenagers are still teenagers, and teenagers are always going to do the things that teenagers will do. What they will do online is an extension of the behaviours that we are all familiar with. However, the other key thing is that if we come thundering in as adults and go and see this new internet thing, I want you to turn it off and not use it, we are not going to get it. We need to understand that, in treating the internet as something alien and different, we are perhaps perpetuating the problem. This is a debate that is about extending freedom to our children as opposed to protection, which we must seek to do in balancing that. It is about providing children and young people with the skills and the ambition to explore the world, but at the same time, trying to instill the habits and behaviours that will keep them safe and do things safely. I recently took part in a debate that was hosted by the Edinburgh Mela, which involved young people exploring those issues. What struck me was two things. First, how conversant they were with the broad range of issues that were in the internet from cyberbullying but up to the issues around freedom of speech, copyright and so on. The way that young people could talk about those issues seamlessly underlines just how sophisticated young people's views can be, but also how they do not see the divisions they do. However, the other key thing was listening to an academic who was pointing out that a lot of the issues that we deal with with the internet are not new. They are the issues of media and of free speech, which have existed as long as the printing press has been around. The moral panics that we have had around the ability to freely distribute pamphlets are very similar to the moral panics that we have around the internet. The differences are the scale, the pervasiveness and the pace of change that technology gives, the trends and the behaviours that we see through many of the issues that we discuss this evening. That is what we need to understand, how we can contextualise our very real concerns and the ways that we have always handled teenagers but making it relevant to the internet age. I think that it is about ensuring that our teenagers can talk openly, that they have a space that they can talk to adults and, indeed, to each other about the issues that they are facing. We also provide teenagers and young people with the skills that they need in order to navigate the world, but we are doing so with the sense of freedom that they need to engage the world. The final point that I would like to draw attention to is that I thought that it was also very interesting in the Barnardo briefing that we must not just only talk about the risk but also about the other issues around the internet, which are about inclusion. We must not just assume that all young people are engaged in internet and are innately aware of it. We must also be aware that some young people are excluded from social media and the internet as well. We must look at all of those things in the round, and I will stop there. That is 20 seconds over. I am sorry, Presiding Officer. Colleiam Kerr, to be followed by Emma Harper. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It is customary to congratulate the MSP who brings a debate. In this case, I just prefer to thank Gillian Martin. What worries me most about this debate is that, as an average, reasonably tech-savvy parent in my early 40s, I realise now how little I know about young people's online experience. For example, there is a game called Roblox or something like that, but it has more than 30 million users and you build a kind of Lego virtual world. Apparently, it is one of, if not the most popular, game played by children from five to ten years of age in the UK. In context, according to a headmaster at a primary school in Coventry, who wrote to a warning letter to parents recently over half of their five to six-year-old pupils, and more than 70 per cent of their six to seven-year-old pupils are playing this online game. The issue here, or one of them, is that there is a chat feature, which, according to the app, is the best place to imagine with friends. According to a primary head in Manchester, who also felt compelled to write to parents, there is no way to screen contacts or to disable the messaging. The Coventry study showed that most of the children's surveyed had online friends in Roblox that their parents did not know about and had received many in-game messages from strangers. Many of the children said that their accounts were maxed out, meaning that they have 200 online friends. The study reported that a lot of the messages were inappropriate and echoes one Sunderland mother's report that her daughter had received a message asking, hello cupcake, do you want to meet up? Her daughter is eight. In all cases, the children reported not telling their parents of the inappropriate messages. To pick up a point raised by Brian Whittle earlier on, it claims to be a kid's safe site, which is supposed to monitor use by those under 12, but the head was able to set up an account. Register as a three-year-old and then play 18 certificate games, including Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty and Halo. Since I am on the subject speaking from anecdotes I have heard, I do think that we need more research into the impact of playing games with inappropriate language and violence on underage children's health and wellbeing and the effects on their attainment at school. Finally, in terms of awareness, Finn Carson brought up online gambling. I note the recent Gambling Commission reports that suggest that there are now 370,000 children between 11 and 16 participating in gambling-related activities in just one week and up to 31,000 underage-classified problem gamblers—underage children who are classified as problem gamblers with many more classified as at risk. It is terrifying, but it is perhaps not surprising. Apparently, the game Candy Crush uses a gameplay loop psychology whereby a repeating chain of events is used in order to establish an addiction-like attraction to the game through the regular release of a neurochemical reward in the brain. You do that by the game presenting the right play-to-win ratio. People by which I mean children in this context are consequently susceptible to proposed purchases in order to continue the reward cycle and advance at the same rate through the game. I understand that none of those principles are regulated and permit the potential exploitation of an age group, possibly susceptible to suggestion and manipulation. Congratulations to Gillian Martin for securing this debate, but thank you also because anything that raises awareness, both among young people and those of us who are not so young, as this debate has, must be a good thing. I wish the campaign's reference every success going forward. I thank my colleague Gillian Martin for bringing this important issue to chamber today on Safer Internet Day. I will focus my words on a conversation with my nephews and two other programmes out there that have been used to help in addition to the DJI that has been mentioned, so I will probably shuffle a bit of my papers around here. We have heard members talk about issues around digital devices, mobile phones, computers and tablets, issues with texting, sexting, post-sharing, negative, harmful writings and things like that. The digital era is upon us and we must empower our children to be smart and responsible users of the technology while avoiding risk and harmful online activities. So, when I was having a conversation with my two young nephews for comments on what they thought cyber resilience meant, I had a wee answer from them. One's 13 and the other one's 15. Be safe online, they said. We get to help that in school. Okay. I said, what does that mean? Well, my mum tells us not to accept friends with Dini Ken face to face. Dini asked for lassies to send naked pictures. That's not on. So I said, what if the lassie sends it to her boyfriend and he promises not to share it with his pals? I write the boys laughed. Should Ken better? Once he's out there, it's out there forever. Okay. I said, what about you lads? Should young people like your mates or people you rage post photos of themselves drinking bucky or smoking cigarettes? Why is that not recommended? I said to them, what are the risks? Well, they shrugged their shoulders so we discussed it and we talked about the possibility of job interviews in the future. I asked, are you likely to get a job interview if you have photos on your profile that shows pictures of you up to naked? Well, the boys hadn't thought of this, but they said they would talk about it with their pals when they went back to school. Because we focused as well on peer support and the fact that if we can get the kids to engage with the kids, that's part of helping address this issue. I also found an online resource, so it's separate to the DigiI. This one was built in Singapore. It's a digital intelligence educational initiative and research framework, but they call it DQ World. They educated or engaged with kids between 8 and 12 years old, so that's actually really a lot younger than the 11 to 26-year-old. However, they did a pilot study that showed the impact of raising awareness of the children's development across several areas that are focused on the online cyber resilience requirements. There's another programme that I heard about just to close, Presiding Officer, that it says yesterday, while I was visiting Markswaterton High School in Dumfries, I learned about an anti-bullying programme in Finland, which Gillian Martin mentioned earlier. The anti-bullying programme in Finland is called Kiva, and there's no translation for it, but it's an anti-bullying programme with an online focus as part of it as well. It works in Finland, and it's being tested at Max High using pupil equity funding to support it. That's something that they're looking at, they're sharing, they're going to measure the outcomes from that, so that we can engage our kids in what the best action would be or activity online. Gillian's motion notes the view that increased awareness of career consequences, legal implications and bullying, and mental health repercussions of such behaviour should be encouraged. We need to make sure that our kids are equipped to deal with the internet and the online challenges that they will face as they grow up, so thank you, Presiding Officer. The last of the open debate contributions is from Ross Greer. Thank you Presiding Officer, and thank you to Gillian Martin for raising this issue here in the chamber. It's not uncommon for a generation to face issues that parents and teachers of the previous generation might struggle to prepare them for. Growing up with the internet, many young people today are familiar with its uses and possibilities from social media, job hunting, handling bills or just finding information. With a few clicks, you can do everything from turn your heating on at home to watch a cat play the piano to connect with someone on the other side of the world. However, being familiar with the internet does not mean that young people have the digital skills that they need. When you grow up with something being so normalised, it's easy to be unaware of the dangers. When it is a relatively new technology that your parents or teachers might be unfamiliar with, it often results in a trial and error approach, which does not work. That can be a particularly hard issue for us to debate without sounding hopelessly out of touch to any young person listening. I am conscious myself that I sound like someone that I might have stopped listening to some time ago. However, engaging with the challenges of the digital world, even using phrases such as the digital world, can make us sound like a bunch of scared luddites, hostile to what is an utterly normal part of life for young people. However, although the overwhelming majority of a young person's online engagement will be entirely positive, something to be encouraged, there are dangers there, just as there are in the real world, and it is our responsibility to address them. Pornographic material is easily accessible, even with any supposed nominal restrictions to viewers over the age of 18, which is in practice impossible for a service provider or website to verify. I should say that negative consequences do not end if the viewer is over the age of 18. The normalisation and widespread availability of pornography has contributed to misogynistic social norms that objectify women and create entirely unrealistic expectations about sex and relationships. There is plenty of research showing the negative impact on the wellbeing of young people, of young women in particular. There are also distinct dangers around sharing sensitive personal information. As smartphone usage has become more widespread among young people, sexing has become a major issue, as I mentioned, but one that many parents and teachers are unprepared and unfamiliar with. As Gillian Marston's motion highlights, that has led to an increase in children being reported for sexual offences. The sharing of intimate photos without consent has an obvious impact on wellbeing. Scotland has introduced new laws to criminalise the sharing of those kinds of images, which is a welcome legal protection. However, a debate does need to be had about the approach that we take to young people involved in that, and whether reporting them for an offence is always the most appropriate approach. I hope that the minister will touch on that and the very positive work that has been on-going in that area. I would like to briefly relate the cultural issues that come up here. Educating children and young people about online safety must address the individual impact, for example, of sharing intimate images, but it is absolutely critical that they also appreciate the wider cultural impact that that has on how sex and relationships are viewed and how society perceives and values women in particular. That is why I have pushed so hard over the last year for personal and social education in our schools to be reviewed and overhauled. Given that three in four young people across the UK did not learn about consent as part of sex and relationship education at school, we have a long way to go before we can say that all of our young people are prepared with the life skills that they need. With the relationship between issues around consent and online safety being so clear, we cannot see education on either topic as existing in a silo, nor can we see those issues in isolation from mental health education and a range of other health and wellbeing areas. A holistic, consistent approach to personal and social education is absolutely essential here. That approach will only happen when young people are the co-designers of that curriculum. That resolves the issues of expecting teachers to address issues that are generationally alien to them, as well as fostering the kind of buy-in and commitment from the young people themselves that we need to see. I look forward to the results of the Government's review of personal and social education following our committee work, and the minister's closing remarks today I hope will make some reference to that. That is often an awkward issue for politicians to address, but it is too important to avoid, and we are well past the time for getting to grips to it. I call Marie Todd to respond to the debate around seven minutes, please minister. Thank you very much. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to close today's debate on this crucial agenda of encouraging cyber resilience among young people. I thank Gillian Martin for bringing this important issue to the chamber, and I thank all the members present here tonight for their valuable contributions. As Gillian Martin said, we do not know the half of it. As a parent myself, I am quite glad of that in many ways. However, as Liam Kerr mentioned, there are some dangers that very young children are exposed to, which we need to protect from. It is perfectly appropriate that our older children have some privacy and some private life to grow and develop in, but we, as adults, need to teach them the skills to operate in what is a perfectly normal world. However, it is a world that many of us did not grow up in, and it is very unfamiliar to us. As a number of people mentioned, we do not let our children go swimming without first teaching them how to stay safe in the water, so it is very much our responsibility to give them the skills to navigate the world. It was great to hear Tavish Scott mention, particularly the Shetland island children and young people, who, as a representative of the Highlands and Islands, of course, I am always delighted to hear about young people taking the initiative and taking the lead. Indeed, that is the solution. They can help to educate us and do the job of educating themselves better than we can in many ways. Tavish Scott, Rona Mackay and Finlay Carson also mentioned holding corporates to account, and that is a very valid point. I agree very much with that. I am delighted that one of my colleagues, Kevin Stewart, had a recent success with Snapchat in taking the primary school location off that particular app. That is a very useful progress. Ash Denham mentioned how pleased she was that she spent her young years without Facebook. I have to say that I am delighted that my young youth and development was spent largely without photographs, never mind Facebook. The hideous 1970s haircuts that have survived that very little photograph to hear are not a pleasure to look at. I am glad that every misdemeanor that I engaged in as a teenager there is not a record now. Emma Harper mentioned that as well, that there is absolutely a risk of leaving a permanent record of what is relatively normal teenage boundary pushing, which will not be viewed positively when children reach adulthood. Mary Fee and many others talked about the need for conversation. We all need to talk about those issues, and that is definitely the best way to help folks to stay safe. Like many others in the chamber, I have mentioned that I am a parent. I agree that, in many cases—this is mentioned by Finlay Carson, Brian Whittle, Daniel Johnson and many others—it is as adults who need to take the lead and demonstrate good behaviour online. I am probably in the only family where the adults break the rules regularly at the dinner table about going on our devices. I am not alone in the chamber of having suffered online abuse in politics. Those people hurling that abuse online at me are not children, largely. I would say that those people are adults. We adults need to take some responsibility and up our behaviour as well. Ruth Maguire, I absolutely loved the little touch of neuroscience that you threw into your speech. I think that that was especially for me to help me to feel comfortable in my first ever debate. You are quite right. The teenage brain is designed for heightened risk-taking, and it is very susceptible to peer pressure. I would say that it seems that the teenagers have an excuse where we adults do not. It feels particularly timely for us to be discussing this today on Safer Internet. The theme this year is to create, connect, share and respect, and a better internet starts with you. It will help to continue to encourage us to explore better ways in which we can support children and young people to use technology responsibly, respectfully, critically and creatively. What happens to us from where children absolutely shapes who we are and has a huge impact on us throughout our lives, especially if those experiences are adverse ones involving exploitation or abuse, we all have a responsibility to do all that we can to ensure that we protect our children and young people from harm wherever that harm occurs. We also have a responsibility to equip our children and young people to be informed and prepared to make the most of digital technologies and with full knowledge and understanding of the consequences of their actions online, decisions about what our children and young people share online and with whom we have really serious ramifications for their future. In 2016, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice commissioned research to analyse recorded crime statistics that showed that other sexual offences had become the largest category of sexual offences. Forty per cent of recorded sexual crime is made up of other sexual crimes and the largest individual category just ahead of sexual assault. The research report recorded crime in Scotland. Other sexual crimes 2013-14 and 2016-17 published in September last year highlighted that half of the offences falling within the other sexual crimes category are communicating indecently, causing to view sexual activity or image often committed online and most likely relating to the sharing of intimate images. Those online crimes are much more likely to have younger victims, mainly female and younger perpetrators, mainly male. As a result, we have established an expert group on preventing sexual offending involving children and young people to look at and identify further steps to prevent sexual offending by young people. The group will bring together expertise from across justice education and health to consider how we prevent and respond to sexual crime committed by young people, not least by considering how to protect our young people by educating them about their rights and responsibilities under criminal law. My time is running short, so I will mention that in September last year we made commitments in the programme for government to address modern challenges of enabling children and young people to enjoy all of the unparalleled opportunities provided for by increased technologies, while doing so in a safe way. We committed to continue building on the good progress that we have made towards implementing key measures in the national action plan on internet safety for children and young people. In closing, I want to thank the members for their very thoughtful reflections throughout the debate. My ministerial colleagues and I are absolutely determined that Scotland's children and young people are afforded protection from harm wherever that harm is caused. We are taking action across government to continue to raise awareness among children and young people on how to stay safe online and the consequences of their actions, to provide support to professionals, parents and carers, and to drive forward progress and understanding how to prevent offending behaviour. What better year to drive that progress forward than in the 2018 year of young people? I will finish with very wise words that were given to me this morning by a young girl at Holyrood school. When I was asking the kids what they wanted me to say in this debate, she came up with a very wise saying, which I think we could all take this advice in this chamber. She said, I realised that all of my best memories were not online, so I take a day off each week. Thank you. That concludes the debate, and I close the meeting.