Children's Global
Media Summit

Giving children the Freedom to explore the digital world in an appropriate and beneficial way was undoubtedly a key theme across the whole Summit, in addition to having a section by itself. His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge asked the Summit to help solve the problems that our youngest audiences face online every day.

Jim Steyer (CEO and Founder, Common Sense Media a non-profit organisation dedicated to improving media lives for children) emphasised this point when he said that global media companies are engaged in "an arms race for your attention", and "devices and phones are becoming like slot machines... they're intentionally designed to get you coming back over and over and over again."

Baroness Beeban Kidron (Founder of the 5Rights initiative for youth digital rights in the UK) had this to add:

"Mark Zuckerberg famously said "Move fast and break things..." - but I don't think they sufficiently considered that one of the things they might break are our children." - Baroness Beeban Kidron

YouTube are one of the most popular global technology platforms with children, and Malik Ducard (Global Head of Family & Learning, YouTube) admitted that that they had been failing to protect young audiences from videos that masquerade as family content, and from inappropriate comments posted on videos for kids.

Malik apologised for the areas in which YouTube had been falling short, and announced that the number of moderators they employ around the world would rise to 10,000. Hearing that was a key illustration for me of how much things have changed in children’s media – I can’t imagine any traditional broadcaster announcing it would employ 10,000 moderators; and it’s frightening to consider that this number may not even be enough.

YouTube’s admission that it needed to tackle this problem, in an arena such as the Summit, was a first. And something else I hadn’t seen before from our industry was the near-unanimous response in our Forum when we asked delegates if they believed that platform providers should be responsible for the content that users upload to their sites. The show of hands was a firm yes.

Here in the BBC, we are helping British children to navigate the digital world with a new initiative called Own It. Tristia Harrison (CEO, TalkTalk, one of the major UK telecoms and internet service providers) called for media and technology sectors to collaborate and to think creatively about what regulation is required.

From the many discussions we had on this subject at the Summit, and of course from the concern we are seeing now in many other places around the world, I have no doubt that this year we will see a wholesale shift in the mindset of the global technology giants, and in how they are regulated.

I’ve deliberately followed Education with Empowerment, because for me the two things are closely linked – in many ways education is empowerment for children, and we also want to always be mindful of the cultural messages that our content sends or reinforces.

Unboxing Boys and Girls was a fascinating panel discussion about gender influences. What I took away from the overall session that both girls and boys should be allowed to be vulnerable in different ways. Male characters should show that it is okay to be emotionally vulnerable, and female characters should be flawed and human.

The potential harms of social media are rarely out of the headlines at present, so it was helpful to be reminded of its positive potential too. While In Conversation writer and satirist Siyanda Mohutsiwa remarked that social media gives young people a platform to air political views and be rewarded for them, rather than feeling pushed aside by a hierarchical society in which they are viewed as not as wise as their elders.

You Can’t Be What You Can’t See emphasised the need for all organisations to embrace diversity, as it inevitably makes both creative and economic sense – and there was a great suggestion in the session that we all take an immediate next step: make a connection with or mentor someone who is completely different to you

Finally, I was struck by this remark captured by our wonderful artist Myro in her window drawings, during the Rise of the Machines session: “What are the cultural biases that are going into AI today that will only be amplified over the coming years i.e. are the machines going to be straight white men?”

I believe that children’s media has always set a high standard onscreen for reflecting diversity. Internationally we have recently seen increasing political and social tensions around race, while perversely many countries are becoming increasingly diverse – heading in many cases towards a situation where no single ethnic group has a majority. It’s essential that children’s media carries on being a positive example of how to reflect the real make-up of societies, and that our good example informs the debate on AI technology as it becomes more prevalent and powerful.

In his keynote the BBC’s Director-General Tony Hall has proposed that we form a coalition across the industry and across borders to find ways to reach out and empower children whose voices are seldom heard. We will be following up on this soon, and you may find me getting in touch with you in the coming months.