Threat

One thing must be said first of all: violence in the classical sense is of course always difficult in digital space, because one does not have the physical ways of acting there. However, it must also be said that there has always been a discussion about whether there is a kind of digital dualism. That means that what happens on the Internet remains on the Internet and what happens in physical space remains in physical space. Today one can no longer assume this, but if people experience, for example, transgression of norms, sexual harassment, sexual offences on the Internet, then this can also have a meaning for them in their physical space. And when people do that on the Internet, then it can also be transferred to the physical space. These development processes, especially in the area of sexual offences, have always been a problem and in my view this is one of the most pressing problems. For example, there is a study that deals with the so-called unwanted sending of pornographic media. In German they always talk about a so-called “dick-pic”. It is assumed that this has the highest difference between brightfield and darkfield. Thus reported offences and really occurred offences, namely 1 to 404. You can imagine that shoplifting has a ratio of 1 to 1.2 and that is a problem when people, even women, get sent pictures like this over and over again, for example. Whether it’s via apps or Instagram or something. Then this is also a form of sexual assault that is perceived as normal. There is a report, which I found very concise, from the LKA NRW in 2013, which spoke, for example, of children on the Internet experiencing sexual harassment and assaults as normality and therefore not reporting them. So in the end we have created or let create a space in which sexual assaults for example on children, but also on all other persons, are perceived as normality and no longer one hundred percent as injustice. That is a big problem. And that is one of the most pressing problems for me in this area that we should face.

I am conflicted about the use of parental monitoring apps: At a certain age, it doesn’t work at all, because children of course have the right to privacy development, so they are free to develop. On the other hand, I have to say that parents are also jointly responsible for ensuring that their children and adolescents do not commit criminal offences. At present, however, there is a trend towards a massive increase in the number of children and adolescents as suspects in the area of child pornography, youth pornography and cyber grooming, for example. This also applies to the use of anti-constitutional symbols, i.e. swastikas and sedition, because children are far too rarely adequately prepared by their parents.

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