Search engine settings for the protection of minors in the focus of media supervision
Despite activated security settings, children and young people easily come into contact with content via search engines that can impair or endanger their development. This concerns especially search hits from the areas of violence, self-harm and extremism. This is the conclusion of the report "Filter mechanisms of search engines", which jugendschutz.net prepared on behalf of the Commission for the Protection of Minors in the Media (KJM). The security settings of the two most popular search engines in Germany, Google and Bing, were examined.
The KJM commissioned the report in order to gain insights into how seriously search engine providers take their responsibility for the protection of children and young people in the media. KJM Chairman Dr. Marc Jan Eumann: "Deficits in the filter functions have indeed become apparent, on which we are already in exchange with the providers and which we will now further intensify." This also includes the dialog within the framework of regulated self-regulation with the Voluntary Self-Regulation of Multimedia Service Providers (FSM). Dr. Marc Jan Eumann continued: "An acute problem identified by the report, namely the output of indexed URLs on one of the search engines, was immediately remedied by a tip-off to the FSM. This shows once again that the proven cooperation between KJM and self-regulatory bodies is an important pillar for effective protection of children and young people in the media."
This assessment is shared by the managing director of the FSM, Martin Drechsler: "Together with the FSM, the best-known search engines in Germany have agreed on a voluntary commitment to the protection of children and young people, e.g. by excluding sexually explicit online content when using the SafeSearch functions as well as when dealing with indexed websites. The FSM also works closely with providers not based in Germany as part of its membership and can react quickly in the interest of German youth media protection law." (Source: Press release KJM 21.8.2020)
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