 Rydyn ni'n gofyn yn oedd y次wr, ond yn ein viadag y mynd i gael ei blynyddu llyfr yn gwybodol i ffawr 1-5111 o'r cymryd y maes yw 무엇 I. Rydyn ni'n gwybodol i gael ei blynyddu llyfr hynny i gael ei blynyddu llyfr yn cyfryd i ddodol i gan ein gilydd, yn ei blynyddu ar gyfer i gael eich blynydd. Rydyn ni'n gwybodol i gael ei blynydd i gael ei blynyddu llyfr yn gwybodol i gael eich blynydd I would also further remind those members leaving the chamber to do so quickly and quietly and indeed invite members of the public leaving the chamber also to leave quickly and quietly please. I now call on Stuart Maxwell to open the debate. Mr Maxwell, you have seven minutes. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am delighted to introduce this debate on the very important and topical subject of protecting our children and other vulnerable groups from harmful online content. First of all, I would like to welcome the announcement that the pilot by the British Board of Film Classification to put an age rating on music videos made by artists signed in the UK is to be made permanent. This has been agreed by not only the major music labels, Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music but also by YouTube and Vivo and this represents a big step forward in the regulation of online content. The internet, as we all know, has really only been available in homes for about 20 years. It is new and a mostly unregulated medium, and, of course, while it has many advantages, the lack of regulation has created some corresponding problems. Those problems have been compounded in recent years by the increasing availability of mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones, which have meant that children who might before have been sitting at the family's PC in the living room are now in their bedrooms where their viewing is entirely unsupervised. Music videos only really began in the 1980s with the rise of MTV, but they quickly became both an integral part of pop songs and quite often a powerful video could help to sell a rather weak song. Music videos make a strong impression and sell records or downloads, giving them great commercial value. The drive for sales has led to, increasingly, extreme lyrics and extreme videos, and the accessibility of the internet has contributed to that. Songs and images that could never have been commercially successful in the past because they would never have been shown on TV as they were too explicit, can be made and streamed on the internet to be viewed by anyone, anywhere, at any time. In the past, people producing music and videos that they wanted to sell to young people had to get past gatekeepers to access radio stations and television by which they could communicate with young people. The radio and TV stations were licensed and regulated, and the organisations that ran the media companies were answerable for the content that they broadcast. Nowadays, music and video producers can talk directly to a child without parents scrutinising or authorising what has been shown or said. We are all aware how impressionable children and particularly young children can be, and the highly sexualised or violent or worst-of-all sexually violent content of certain music videos is indeed, I am sure, a great concern to many of us. Analysis of academic research into music videos has found that women and disturbingly, particularly black women, are routinely portrayed in a hyper-sexualised fashion. This objectification of women, particularly along racial lines, is extremely unhealthy both for boys and for girls, and it is right that we shield our children from these disturbing images, and specifically those that glamourise criminality such as drug-taking, a particular issue in some rap music videos. I am therefore heartened that, after the success of the BBFC pilot for major labels, UK independent music labels are now taking part in a six-month trial to submit their videos to the BBFC for age rating. I do hope that they follow the example of the major labels in making this classification permanent. I was interested to note that during the initial trial of the major labels which took place in 2015, of the 132 videos reviewed, 56 were rated as suitable for children age 12 or under and given a 12 classification, 53 were given a 15 classification and one video was classified as an 18. This sample shows that about 50 per cent of the music videos produced in a six-month period by UK-signed artists are unsuitable for those under 15, yet I would be extremely surprised if they had not been viewed by a large percentage of children under that age. One of the major advantages of this system of classification is that it is the same as for films and is simple and widely understood. Everyone with children will be able to interpret those classifications immediately. A consultation carried out by the BBFC in 2013 of over 10,000 people across the UK found that the public has great confidence in those classifications. The public agrees with the BBFC's classifications in over 90 per cent of cases. 95 per cent of parents with children under 15 check the BBFC classification and 84 per cent of parents with children aged 6 to 15 consider that the BBFC is effective at using age-rating classification to protect children from unsuitable content. The system that is used enjoys a high level of public confidence and support. This is another heartening feature of the extension of the BBFC's classification system to music videos. It is interesting to note that independent research into the pilot commission by the BBFC has shown that 78 per cent of parents would value age ratings on online music videos, and up to 60 per cent of those aged 10 to 17 are watching music videos that they do not think their parents would approve of. A rating system would provide clear guidelines for parents and children and make it easier for parents to impose and enforce rules in homes across the country about what could be viewed. I believe that many children will also welcome this classification system. I am sure that there are young children who have been shocked and often distressed by some of the images that they happen to have seen and who would welcome the fact that they would have the security of being able to watch a video knowing that they would not be upset by what it could contain. Let me be clear that this is not about banning material that is suitable for adults. It is making sure that the material that is not suitable for children is not available to children. Another heartening development is the decision by Scotland's four mobile networks, e.g. O2, 3 and Vodafone, to place mobile content that would be rated 18 or R18 by the BBFC behind access controls and internet filters. It is worth noting that R18 is a special category for films that are particularly strong or explicit. R18 DVDs cannot be ordered by mail order and have to be viewed in a specially licensed cinema or sold over the counter in a specially licensed shop. It is particularly important therefore that this content is not available to children. The BBFC is the independent regulator of mobile content and the system voluntarily adopted by the mobile operators means that filters can be put in place by parents to restrict people under 18 from accessing online pornography and other harmful sites such as pro anorexia sites from their mobile phones. Nevertheless, there is a problem in that children can get access to these sites via their devices through public wi-fi in places such as coffee shops and shopping centres. We have different standards that apply depending on how the information is accessed. Whether through a public wi-fi system, mobile networks are home broadband. I believe that the time has now come to put stricter controls in place so that age ratings apply to accessing information via public wi-fi in order to create a consistent system without loopholes that protects our children and other vulnerable people no matter where they are accessing the internet from. The BBFC's classification system is clearly a step in the right direction. However, it only applies to online music videos for artists signed to labels in the UK. Non-UK signed artists are not covered by this classification system and that is a problem. I therefore call upon US labels in particular from where so much popular music emanates to voluntarily submit their music videos to the BBFC for classification, particularly as some of the most controversial music videos come from the USA. The BBFC is an independent non-governmental body that was set up in 1912, so for over 100 years it has been providing guidance for parents on the suitability of films and later on, in fact, from 1984, guidance on the suitability of videos for children. It is to be congratulated for extending its role to online content to keep up with changes in technology and I am pleased to commend the work of the BBFC to the chamber, whilst at the same time reminding colleagues across the chamber that there is still some way to go in ensuring a consistent approach to protecting our children from inappropriate materials online. I stand in support of the motion before us today from Stuart Maxwell and congratulate Stuart on bringing this important issue to the attention of Parliament. The whole aspect of protecting children from harmful content is easily abused in terms of are we being nanny-statish in the way that we approach the issue? Are we creating a problem where many people would say that the right of access or freedom is preeminent? I would offer the view that we are not being overly protective. I think that there are issues here that Stuart has rehearsed for us in his input, which are of great concern to us. Looking around the chamber and hopefully not being unkind to members who are here, this issue would probably be more productively discussed at the youth Parliament, who would understand the issues a great deal better than the average age of those who sit alongside me today. They are closer to the issue and, as I said, hopefully I am not being unkind to my colleagues. However, there is not only a lifetime of difference between our aspects, but centuries of difference in terms of the approach that a 16 or 17-year-old would take to the matters that we discuss and to the ones that we try to develop here in the chamber. I thank Graham Pearson for taking on intervention. I think that there might be potentially one of the younger members in the chamber. I agree with his point that it should be also for the youth Parliament to have that discussion, have that debate and, potentially, the will to foster a wider contribution from Scotland. However, at the same time, as one of the younger members who has two young children, I think that it is also very relevant and important that this Parliament and the other Parliaments and Assemblies in the UK have that discussion and debate as well. I agree wholeheartedly with what has just been said. I do not suggest for a moment that that is not a matter for us. I hope that I gave no impression that that was the case. It is important, but I think that we need to listen to those in the youth Parliament environment, because they have things to tell us that we are probably currently unaware of. Particularly in the context of the technologies that we speak of, we are somewhat distant from the modern developments that occur almost daily. We need to try to keep up to date with those developments. Hence, Stuart Maxwell has brought to our attention really important impacts that arise from the access that can be gained to the internet by new developments. Harmful content online demands that all practical steps necessary to protect children must be taken. In the fast-changing world of new technology, Government and other authorities should keep abreast of their developments to maintain security. I would invite Stuart Maxwell to consider that not only is it children that need some means of protection but also vulnerable adults who can be influenced by what they see via their various tablets and so on. As he touched on, it is not solely within the music environment but also within the games environment, too, that access to extensive violence, attitudes and culture has an impact on individuals who become imbued with similar views. We have seen played out across the world where people have become involved in extreme violence and death, having spent extensive time viewing unpalatable images via the internet. I conducted a Google search this morning on the subject of protecting children from harmful contact, and 92 million hits were achieved in less than a second. That is a matter of deep concern. Yet, in 2011, the Herald newspaper reported that only one in four parents in Scotland had initiated controls on their systems to limit access to the internet to try to protect those people in their family environments from the less distasteful images that might be otherwise available. A standardised approach is necessary. The British board of film classification provides a very useful input in that regard, but I also think that the authorities that oversee gaming 2 should standardise their approach with the British board of film classification. Without extending my time here at the chamber, I wholeheartedly support the motion that is put before us today. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I thank Stuart Maxwell for bringing this debate to the chamber—a very topical debate—in the consequences of the debate that I have been looking at for a long time. I can also welcome the conversation around classification. That is something that has been long overdue. As Graham Pearson said, not just in the movie industry but also in the games industry, being the mother of two sons, I was always a bit alarmed at some of the content of games and music videos that they were exposed to that looked as if that was normalising aspects of everyday life when it should not be normalising that those types of things are aspects of everyday life. However, what I want to touch on today is a topic that I have touched on a few times in the chamber before. It is a consequence of our amazing ability to access anything that we have on anywhere, anytime, anyplace, via either a 3G or a 4G or a WiFi connection. How valuable that is in opening up the world to our young people and giving them aspects and insights into so many things. However, there is also a dark side to that. The dark side to that is how it can be then used against young people, how they can be exposed to things that are alarming, that are frightening, that can normalise abnormal and scary behaviour. Those types of consequences are where I want to go with that. In the chamber before, I raised very early on in the debate the issue about revenge porn and how that can be used, the sharing of intimate images can be used, the issues around objectification of women and again how that can be used to try and normalise a partner behaviour that makes it okay to get involved in some of those things. The issue for me when it comes to young people and the sharing of intimate images is how young people can be groomed online, how they can be bullied into sharing intimate images of themselves and then how those images are used on shaming sites. There are some really derogatory names for some of those sites. I will not echo them in our chamber today because they do not merit the words, but shaming sites will be the cover all for them all. For some young people that has led to really serious self-harm, to attempted suicides and in some cases, well documented cases now, actual suicide, where young people have been shamed so much by the sharing of intimate images across all platforms, whether it is on the internet or via social media. Where I want to focus that my final remarks on is obviously the consequences of that, but the internet providers and the social media providers and their responsibility in some of that. I know of many, many young people who have attempted to have some comments and mocked-up photographs and actual photographs and images of themselves removed from some of those sites. They have found that very, very difficult to do because maybe an internet provider that they use in this country is registered in another country. Therefore, they come under a different jurisdiction and there is an issue about international law and how that should be used to protect our children. That is a real worry for me. I think that there has to be a serious look. I think that internet providers and social media providers should take a leaf out of the book of the British Board of Film Classification in the work that they are doing to look at how they should take forward some of the ideas that they have. I think that the time has come now where we need much, much stronger policies on that, not only for the young people who are accessing some of this information and using it maybe to bully or shame or receiving it and it is causing them real desperate alarm, but also for us as parents and not just as parents if you are not a parent but as the general community. How do we ensure and put pressure on some of these organisations to make sure that our young people, when they go into that amazing world of online media and the benefits that that brings for them, that they are not then exposed to some of the really dark scary stuff that is in there but that they can handle it as well and us as parents and as the adults in their lives have equipped with that information to ensure that we can then support young people when they do have that type of experience. It is a debate that is a long time coming, it is a debate that we should not stop having and I think that the speed of technology moves on and we have to be fleet of foot and move with that speed as well and I would be really keen to hear that. Just my final comment is that in Europe and the European Union there is European communities that are looking at doing something that is European wide on this and I think that that is maybe something we should always keep a weather eye on as well and ensuring that if we can do this across boundaries and across borders then it takes away that issue of an internet provider being registered in a different country and therefore saying not our problem it's a different jurisdiction and that's where I'd like to go with us but thanks for bringing the debate to the chamber and I think it's as I say it's something we should continue to focus on. Thank you so much and now call on Liz Smith after which moved the closing speech to the minister. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer and can I congratulate Stuart Maxwell on bringing this debate to Parliament because it's quite clearly an extremely important one and can also pay tribute to the preceding speaker so I think I've made some excellent points. The fact that children and young people are accessing potentially harmful content online is a matter that concerns us all and that can be particularly the case I think when it comes to music videos given their very wide-ranging popularity which obviously I didn't have until very recently the age ratings and parents are quite clearly very right to be worried about the ease of access to these and the challenges that that presents as have just been set out by Christina McKelvie because it's very well known that some of these music videos contain very explicit violent and sexual imagery that is totally unsuitable. So it's of paramount importance that parents are empowered with the tools that Graham Pearson spoke about to make informed choices for the children. Stuart Maxwell is very clear in his motion about the research that has been undertaken by the British board of the film classification. Notice in the motion that 78 per cent of parents would value age ratings for online videos. 70 per cent for parents and children under the age of 12 are worried about the children being exposed to inappropriate content and furthermore the same body has found that many as 60 per cent of the children actually surveyed said that they have watched music videos which they know that the parents would really not approve of. So I think this is a message from children just as much as it is from the adults and I think it's the combination actually of parents and their children that actually can take us quite a long way forward in trying to address it. In October 2014, the UK Government launched its pilot programme, as Stuart Maxwell spoke about, in conjunction with Vivo and YouTube, as well as with the major UK music labels to introduce the new ratings system. I think that the early signs are that that is proving to be very successful and I'm pleased that the success of that pilot scheme is something that has obviously captured the imagination of some other aspects of industry in the UK. So can I take the opportunity to commend the BBFC, the YouTube and Vivo, as well as the wider UK music industry for the voluntary and very proactive role I have to say that they have undertaken and actually the people who have come to this Parliament to help us to be more informed about it, I think that they deserve great credit for doing just that. I think that it's a very positive step in preventing children from viewing the harmful content online, but I think that Christina McKelvie made an important point about being able to understand the choices that they have to make and that's something that I think has to get back to parents and Graham Pearson made perhaps the ages but nonetheless very sensible comment about the fact that we should be taking advice from those who are perhaps a bit closer to it than some of the rest of us. Of course that's not to say that there isn't a great deal more work to do. One vital step is to ensure that the age ratings are linked to the online parental controls and Stuart Maxwell mentioned about the activities of the phone companies, I think that's very positive as well. So Deputy Presiding Officer, can I warmly welcome the progress that has been made to date? Yes, of course. I'll say this now because I probably never say it again. Can I just commend the work of the UK Prime Minister on this issue? I know that he has personally taken a very close interest in it and intervened directly. Perhaps his wife has had some role in that, but he has directly intervened to support the work of pushing this forward. Can I ask you, as a Conservative member, perhaps to urge him to redouble his efforts in ensuring that we spread this out, not just to other independent producers of music videos in the UK but to other countries that he can do, in a way that none of us can, to ensure that perhaps US artists volunteer and US companies sign up to the same classification? I think that that's a kind comment to make. I think that it's a very true reflection of David Cameron's interest. I think that he'll be pushing it an open door because I know for a fact that he is very determined on this issue. I'm sure that the minister herself has probably had discussions on that, but I will certainly undertake to ensure that it passes on. We now move the closing speech from the minister. We now call on Aileen Campbell. Minister, you have seven minutes all thereby. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Like all the other speakers this afternoon, I'm also grateful to Stuart Maxwell for bringing this important issue to debate and for creating the space for us all to contribute in what has been a very responsible debate, allowing us to consider what more we need to do to keep our children safe because the protection of children's wellbeing is the responsibility of all of us. We each have a duty to take the steps that we can to ensure that children and young people are not exposed to harm and that that is the case in our increasingly digital world as much as it is in our homes, our schools, our businesses and also in our communities. Whilst matters of internet regulation remain reserved to the UK Government, I encourage and continue to encourage the UK Government to collaborate with us fully through the UK Council on Child Internet Safety in recognition of Scotland's devolved responsibilities in key areas of internet safety. I say that because it took the Scottish Government a bit of work to try to make sure that we were always involved in those discussions as well as notwithstanding the Prime Minister's clear commitment to that, there needs to be an understanding that those things transcend boundaries and that there is a real importance for us within our devolved responsibilities of keeping children safe for that door to always and continually be open. Like Graham Pearson and Stuart McMillan, I recognise the need for young people to have input into this discussion. As Graham Pearson was trying to say without trying to offend us in our ages, young people are not necessarily to be found on Facebook, because that is where often their grandparents are. We need to understand that, as new things develop, we need to know where our young people are. If we want to know where our young people are when they are offline, that has to be as true for the situations when they are online. We need to stay ahead of the game, because that is why it is important that we get young people involved in those discussions because they are the ones that can inform us about what is important and how they are communicating with their peers. Like Stuart Stevenson, Anne-Lys Smith and others, I welcome the voluntary steps that are being taken by the UK music industry to ensure that music videos are given age ratings by the British board of film classification. I am committed to ensuring that we continue to work with the BBFC as part of their advisory consultative committee and with other partners within industry to see if more can be done to influence companies based overseas who have not yet committed to this initiative to do so. Allied to this is the decision, noted by Stuart Maxwell of the Four Main Mobile Networks, to place content rated R18 by the BBFC behind access controls, meaning that this content can be excluded by parental controls. These are clearly important signals by industry that they are taking seriously the very valid concerns of parents about the ease with which children can access inappropriate content. I also welcome the scheme, which allows businesses to display the friendly Wi-Fi symbol to show that the Wi-Fi provided by them is filtered and safe for children and young people to use. However, although those developments are very welcome steps, they should not ever allow for complacency. There is still a myriad of ways in which children may be exposed to harmful content, whether that be on the covers of newspapers or magazines that are displayed in shops and newsagents that are within a child's eye line or online. The most significant online risk that is faced by our children and young people are not those that will be easily eliminated by increasing parental controls or filters. The increase in peer-to-peer sharing of indecent images, Revenge Porn, as Christina McKelvie noted, is the growth and live streaming of child's sexual exploitation and the grooming for the purposes of blackmail and exploitation. The objectification of women all happen on platforms that lie outside the specifics mentioned within the motion. Of course, the majority of content uploaded is not subject to a classification system that lends itself to the parental controls or effective filters. That recent off-come survey demonstrated that many parents choose not to employ parental controls. While parents want to have more control, there are, in some cases, for many reasons not taking that action. Of course, the reasons for that are many and varied. Some parents feel that their children can be trusted without the need for additional controls, while others point out that their children are never unsupervised while they are online. However, a significant proportion reported concerns that setting up controls appeared complicated and beyond their technical know-how. Industry therefore has a continued role in ensuring that those controls are accessible to as many people that wish to use them. However, there is also clearly a job of work for us to do as well. That is why the Scottish Government's digital participation strategy focuses efforts on helping everyone to develop the skills and confidence to become active digital citizens, enabling parents with those concerns to have help available should they wish to use it. The Scottish stakeholder group for child internet safety will work also with Police Scotland and other key partners in co-ordinating our response to those challenges in conjunction with the work being undertaken as a result of our national action plan on child sexual exploitation. We must make absolutely clear to perpetrators of online crime that the full force of the law will be brought to bear on them. We must not forget that the responsibility for crimes being committed online lies with those committing the offence, and we must ensure that deterrents are as robust as they possibly can be. Moreover, the national sexual crimes unit within the Crown Office is doing important work in increasing successful convictions of sexual crime, and the Police Scotland's national child abuse investigations unit complements that by providing consistent, higher-quality support for robust investigations into reports of complex child abuse and neglect, including child sexual exploitation and online child abuse. We should also acknowledge the work that practitioners do to protect children every day, either in education or other children's services. There are many examples of original and creative approaches being developed by schools and youth groups to educate our children and young people about the risks in a meaningful way that engages with them where they are. I also think that it is important to remember that we must not demonise the internet. As many members have noted, children and young people use the internet in ways that are unimaginable to those of us who did not grow up in this digital age, and we all want to see a Scotland where children are encouraged and enabled to benefit the huge opportunities that are offered by digital technologies. We do not want to push our young people into dark, scary places—in the words that Christina McKelvie used—by constantly demonising the internet. Our language needs to be and our actions need to be appropriate. I welcome the approaches that are taken so far by the industry while recognising that more can and should be done. Parental controls are clearly an important tool, but the use of these technical controls must be seen as a supplement, too, rather than a replacement for broader approaches that make it clear that parents do not shoulder the full weight of keeping children safe online. We must ensure that children in Scotland are seen as a hostile environment for online crimes while promoting the digital world as an essential to our growth and prosperity and encouraging and enabling all our citizens to take part in online life to the fullest extent and to do that in the safest possible way. Once again, I extend my thanks to Stuart Maxwell and the rest of the members who took part in today's debate. I look forward to continuing in this dialogue as we can try to continually strive to make sure that our children can grow up safe from harm, especially on the online world. I thank you all for taking part in this important debate and I now suspend this meeting of Parliament until 2 o'clock this afternoon.