Topic: 2025 – Protecting and Empowering Youth in Digital Spaces
Country: Ireland
Delegate Name: Liv Mardiros
The youth (15-24 years old) is an increasingly vulnerable group as their access to the Internet grows and expands to cover all use cases from education to entertainment. Their future is becoming disproportionally dependent on technology compared to the resources provided to them about how to best navigate these difficult digital spaces. As of 2023, 94% of Irish youth use the Internet daily. The Republic of Ireland sees how important the issue is of keeping our youth safe online and is taking steps to address the potentially life-threatening side effects of this constant connectivity. Currently, we are working to fully integrate digital literacy curricula into all Irish schools under our Digital Strategy for Schools program, which both empowers and educates youth about digital citizenship and their rights online. Fully enacted in March of 2023, Ireland’s Online Safety and Media Regulation Act establishes our national Online Safety Commissioner and introduces binding Online Safety Codes for platforms operating in Ireland. These codes require online platforms utilize risk assessments, reporting systems, and prompt removal procedures. They expand traditional media regulation to digital platforms and vitally create legal pathways for addressing harmful content without infringing on free expression. We urge other UN member states to take similar action together as our work is not complete without the support of multilateral institutions.
General Comment No. 25 (2021) of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child asserts that children’s global rights are to be equally enforced online. These rights contain the right to freedom of expression, privacy, access to information, and protection from exploitation and harm – the latter being critically applicable and important in digital spaces. Many states are now trying to balance these established rights with economic growth through the technology sector, while ensuring youth feel empowered and stay safe. UNCRC GC25 was a landmark development for children’s online safety, increasing the attention given to the issue internationally. As platforms develop at an alarming rate, including implementing dangerous and untested artificial intelligence features, documents providing guidance to both states and businesses on how to protect the rights of children online are needed more than ever. Digital spaces are fundamental to children’s lives all around the globe, but those spaces are doing more harm than good. They increase youth’s vulnerability to harassment, grooming and exploitation, misinformation, data-privacy violations, and harmful content; all of which exacerbate the mental health crisis the world is facing. This problem is uniquely global, as content crosses borders quickly which makes national law alone an insufficient solution. The Republic of Ireland is already using our European Union membership to support programs addressing this issue nationally. The EU General Data Protection Regulation is the leading edge standard for protecting data privacy rights, including those of children. The EU Better Internet for Kids program supports empowering youth to work with voice their opinions to technology companies to develop online safety guidance and materials that understand and meet the needs of their demographic as young people. The EU and UN both recommend “safety-by-design” approaches, which are currently implemented in many states, although their implementation takes many different forms. Ireland, Finland, Australia, and the United Kingdom, namely, are at the forefront of legislation to protect and empower children online.
The Delegation of Ireland is committed to upholding the Rights of the Child outlined in GC25, and will work to support resolutions addressing this critical issue. There must be clearer and more easily enforceable international standards for protections built-in to online platforms, education on the subject for children, and ways to report and prosecute harmful content and features, all while empowering youth and without infringing on freedom of speech. The Human Rights Council has an urgent obligation to support these causes and reach a conclusion, especially as the situation is only becoming more dire.
1. United Nations, “Youth,” United Nations, n.d., https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/youth.
2. “Frequency of Internet Usage Internet Coverage and Usage in Ireland 2023 – Central Statistics Office,” Www.cso.ie (CSO, November 24, 2023), https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-isshict/internetcoverageandusageinireland2023/frequencyofinternetusage.
3. “Digital Strategy for Schools to 2027 Digital Strategy for Schools to 2027,” 2022, https://www.dlplanning.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Digital-Strategy-to-2027.pdf
