Better child protection on the net

Child with a smartphone © Tobias Hase

A round table of technology companies has been suggested by the Google corporation to fight child abuse on the Internet. Representatives from Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple welcomed the idea at a Vatican conference.

According to the letter, Google's head of strategic partnerships in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Carlo d'Asaro Biondo, said online companies could work with religious representatives and other stakeholders to discuss progress and criteria for better child protection online. Specifically, he proposed meetings every one or two years at the Vatican, according to the organizer on Friday.

International conference on child dignity on the Internet

To mark the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 30 years ago, an international conference on child dignity on the Internet was held Thursday and Friday at the headquarters of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. The meeting was attended by representatives of technology groups and various religions, as well as international organizations and protection associations.

Greetings from Pope Francis

Pope Francis took internet companies to task for fighting child pornography in his greeting to the conference. Companies cannot pretend they are not responsible for the tools they put in their customers' hands, he said Thursday.

The fact that, according to studies, children have access to pornographic content for the first time at the age of eleven is unacceptable under any circumstances. It is necessary to "banish violence and every form of abuse against minors from the face of the earth," the pope said.