Ofcom published new research today on kids and gaming, Growing Up Gaming. The bit that stuck with me: 55% of children who game online say they at least sometimes play with people they've never met offline. Talking to strangers is also parents' biggest concern, ahead of bullying, yet fewer than half (43%) set any rule about who their child can play with.
Tony Stower, Ofcom's online safety gaming lead, said: "Parents can do their bit, but ultimately the buck stops with gaming platforms." The law is moving the same way.
Platforms serving UK children already carry that duty under the Online Safety Act, and the EU's KIDS Act, proposed last month, would ban unsolicited contact from strangers in online games. The gap between parents' biggest concern and the rule they set least is the platform's job to close, with defaults.
What good defaults look like to me: a kid's account starts with contact limited to people they actually know. An adult trying to reach a kid they don't know hits some friction. And parents get one clear switch for who can contact their child, not a maze of settings.
The other piece is what teams measure. Most of us report how much got removed after the fact. I'd want a number for how often a stranger reaches a kid in the first place, by week, and I'd want it going down.
#TrustAndSafety #ChildSafety #GamingSafety #OnlineSafety
Ofcom's research: https://lnkd.in/eCMEajUX