Pope Francis has called for action to be taken on kids’ exposure to porn sites online.
Speaking at the Promoting Digital Child Dignity conference in the Vatican recently, he, therefore, called on technology giants to prevent children from accessing pornography online easily.
Francis said: “There is a need to ensure that investors and managers remain accountable, so that the good of minors and society is not sacrificed to profit.
“For the sake of advancing the development of the internet and its many benefits, companies that provide services have long considered themselves mere suppliers of technological platforms, neither legally nor morally responsible for the way they are used.”
The Pope noted “It is now clear that they cannot consider themselves completely unaccountable vis-a-vis the services they provide for their customers. So I make an urgent appeal to them to assume their responsibility towards minors, their integrity and their future.”
He said the balancing of free expression and privacy online is a “crucial aspect” of digital life and also raised fears about increased use of encryption which would make “any control extremely difficult, if not impossible”.
