Almost synchronously with the release of Born Digital in the U.S., the Swiss conservative party CVP has made headlines with a position paperthat outlines actions to proactively deal with the problems associated with online aggression in Switzerland. The strategy proposed by the conservative party focuses on youth and addresses Internet violence (including cyberbullying) in general and violent games in particular. Among the measures suggested in the position paper are:
- Introduction of a nation-wide, harmonized rating and classification system for movies, games and MMS services, analogous to the Dutch NICAM model;
- Amendment of the Swiss Penal Code, sec. 135, in order to ban the sale and making available of games with violent or (other) adult content to children and teenagers;
- Incorporation of a federal Media Competence Center for electronic media that would administer the classification system, run information and prevention campaigns to educate parents, teachers, etc., and study online addiction, among other things;
- Commission and release of a study on cyberbullying by the Swiss Federal Council;
- Formalized collaboration among the Swiss cantons in order to protect youth from violent content;
- Mandatory inclusion of media literacy classes into the curriculum at public schools (including sessions on the effects of extensive use of media);
- Information campaign to educate parents and teachers;
- Conversations between teachers and parents in cases of under-performance of school children due to excessive media usage.
We’ve discussed several of these strategies in Born Digital, chapter 9.
From Urs Gasser's blog:
