Social Networking sites were put on the agenda at the recent European Commission Safer Internet Forum in Luxembourg.

According to an eGov article in the past year, “the use of social networks has grown 35% in Europe. 56% of the European online population visited social networking sites last year and the number of regular users is forecast to rise from today’s 41.7 million to 107.4 million in the next four years. In 2007 9.6 million British belonged to the country’s social networking community, with 8.9 million in France and 8.6 million in Germany”.

The article goes on to say that on average in 2007 UK individuals spent 5.8 hours a month using sites such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube etc. That doesn’t seem so much until you see the figure for Italy which was only 1.8 hours!

The commission see that their are some great benefits to social networking sites such as:

• they offer cultural diversity.
• there is little or no financial cost to using the sites.
• they can enhance new economic opportunities for example “customer service, advertising, mobile phone industry, human resources, entertainment” which have all benefited from social networking sites.
• they help people to become active users of new technologies.
• they are user led so can offer a great chance for people to be creative and encourages participation/ engagement in communities.
• they have revitalised the way people manage their social contacts and help individuals maintain their social networks, which for awhile was lost.
• social networking sites are used by a broad spectrum of the community (young people, professionals, retired) and are a great way for private and public businesses to reach their target groups and engage individuals in all elements of their business, such as in product innovation, in improving customer services/ experiences etc.
• they offer organisations a chance to create their own communities in the workplace by creating organisational social networking sites. Helping employee involvement in the compnay and having a positive effect on productivity.
• they offer smaller businesses a chance to take advantage of the Internet through social networking sites.
• the can create employment with social networking companies like Facebook and MySpace setting up offices in Europe.

However as much as there are benefits there are some serious issues with such sites, particularly around data protection and protection of children. The commission recently published the results of a consultation on social networking and child safety. The commission is encouraging self regulation and have established a Social Networking Task Force with “17 operators of social networking sites used by under-18’s (Myspace, YouTube, Bebo, Hyves, StudiVZ and Skyrock) a number of researchers and child welfare organisations”. The task force will establish voluntary guidelines for how children use social networking sites and in 2009-2013 it will build social networking sites into the commissions Safer Internet Programme.

According to the eGov article the age of users using social networking sites have dropped over the last few years with large numbers of 9-10year olds now using the sites. This leaves them open to abuse by some adults, cyber bullying by peers and abuse of their private information. These can be minimalised by measures such as parental control and screening, with some social networking sites also providing user safety tools and information, and systems for reporting banned content/ behaviour.

Building on the success of mobile operators in 2007 signing the European Framework for Safer Mobile use by Young Teenagers and Children, the commission “is discussing a set of guidelines for ensuring the online safety of young people and children with social networking sites. They will be unveiled at the next Safer Internet Day, February 10, 2009, along with a pan-European INSAFE network campaign to raise awareness of the potential risks children and young people can meet online”.

To read the full eGov Monitor article on Social Networking Sites visit the eGov website.