Topic: 2025 – Protecting and Empowering Youth in Digital Spaces
Country: Italy
Delegate Name: Samuel Sundeen
Country: Italy
Delegate: Samuel Sundeen
School: Williamston High School
Committee: Human Rights Council
Topic: Protecting and Empowering Youth in Digital Spaces
With the rise of the internet, there are many new issues that come with it. Nearly 80% of young people have access to the internet. But with this access, many aren’t educated on how to safely use the internet. The internet poses many threats to children, and with people sharing their personal information. People getting doxed and people being exploited are real issues. These issues are worse with children, who often don’t know how to use the internet in a safe way because of a lack of education and protection. These issues get worse with children also because they’re easier to take advantage of.
Italy has tried to combat these issues. Italy enacted a cyberbullying law in 2017. This law helps define cyberbullying. Italy also uses content filtering. Content filtering helps protect our youth from seeing things they shouldn’t see, such as violent images. Italy uses hotlines very effectively, where people can report behavior and things they see online 24/7. Italy also uses awareness programs geared towards promoting safe internet use. They have programs in schools that promote digital literacy and the responsible use of the internet. Italy is a part of the Generazioni Connesse, which is an organization that is co-funded by the EU that helps run awareness campaigns to promote a safer internet. It also helps protect children digitally.
It is crucial to protect our youth. While the internet can be helpful in many ways, it can also harm people, especially our youth, if not used in the right way. This is why Italy calls for more awareness programs in schools in order to protect our youth. If most children are going to use the internet, they should be educated on how to use it properly. Italy also calls for more age verification and filtering systems. With these systems in place, our youth would be significantly safer from content they shouldn’t have access to. Ideally, the filtering would protect youth from violent images and other inappropriate content. Italy looks forward to enacting these laws domestically, and hopefully, other European countries will follow suit.
