فضاء رقمي غير آمن !

A massive digital world that families of all segments deal with in light of the modern digital generation; which finds itself facing many unsafe contents and harmful behavioral reflections that may arise from the unmonitored virtual world; which allows users of these worlds to create virtual realms that may target children and adolescents.

Warnings are escalating in light of the spread of numerous risks on digital media and social networking platforms, revealing the extent of their danger and negative impact on children and adolescents, prompting experts and specialists to call for decisive measures to mitigate their dangers and protect users of these worlds, which may be accompanied by a lack of parental and community supervision, leading to a targeted generation filled with incorrect intellectual, security, and social beliefs.

Gaming platforms come as one of the most important of those worlds around which warnings and prohibitions are escalating; they are one of the largest digital platforms that gather children around the world, and they represent a fertile environment for child predators and manipulation, among other unethical matters, as well as for extremists.

Despite the efforts made by some of these platforms to combat all unethical activities, they still pose a danger to children, in light of a digital world teeming with cases of harassment and sexual exploitation of children and attempts to recruit extremists, as the weakness of parental supervision and the lack of interaction from digital platforms with all negative observations and aspects converge.

Tracking Harassers... Difficult

Technology and information security expert Mohammed Al-Suraihi confirmed to “Okaz”: that it is difficult to track harassers on gaming platforms due to the policies of those programs, which rely on registration with fictitious names and email addresses or phone numbers upon registration, and you cannot inquire about real names or email addresses or phone numbers during registration. This protects the privacy of children during registration, but it also protects harassers and extremists.

Al-Suraihi added: Some countries have taken the initiative to ban those platforms, and the Media Regulatory Authority in Saudi Arabia has mandated the platform to stop voice and text chats on the gaming platform, and to block more than 300,000 games within the category of (social gathering games), in addition to tightening the supervision of the platform's content to enhance digital safety, protect privacy, and provide a safer experience for users.

Some countries have introduced new amendments aimed at enhancing levels of protection and digital security for users of certain platforms, especially children. The amendments included “temporarily disabling some communication features such as in-game chat, as part of precautionary measures to protect younger age groups,” and the changes also include improvements in content supervision and communication in Arabic, as well as adding enhancements to a set of safety features and parental control tools.

Al-Suraihi emphasized that increasing supervision on the platform is a necessity that the platform should strive for and implement until it becomes safer for its users, and it is the responsibility of families to double their efforts to monitor their children's use of the platform, and to ensure that parental control tools are activated and guide them towards safe usage, which requires greater awareness from parents to ensure that the experience remains within its safe recreational framework, away from any potential digital risks.

Tightening Restrictions on Content

Security expert retired Major General Mohammed Al-Asmeri, in his talk to “Okaz,” calls for imposing stricter restrictions on digital and electronic platforms, tightening restrictions on inappropriate content, in addition to preventing children's and adolescents' accounts from accessing such inappropriate content.

Major General Al-Asmeri expressed hope for imposing specific restrictions on any content that includes unethical behaviors or promotes dangerous acts or addiction and extremist organizations; that exploit those platforms to promote their beliefs. He said that children are not safe on those platforms, which are actually devoid of safety tools to protect their users, and that real improvements should be made for the safety of users of its platform, especially children.

Removal of 28 Million Extremist Materials

The joint efforts between the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology (Etidal) and the (Telegram) platform during the third quarter of the current year 2025 (July - September) culminated in the removal of 28,495,947 extremist materials and the closure of 1,150 channels used for extremist propaganda, as part of the joint work to combat digital content; broadcasted by many extremist and terrorist organizations and groups.

The rate of publishing extremist materials witnessed a noticeable activity, with August recording the peak of activity at 42%, followed by July at 40%, while September came last at 18%.

It is worth noting that the results of the third quarter raised the total number of extremist materials removed since the beginning of the joint cooperation between (Etidal) and (Telegram) in February 2022 until the end of September 2025, to 236,100,889 extremist materials removed, in addition to the closure of 18,605 extremist channels.