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This contribution considers how evolving insights into Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its interplay with human rights can provide a framework for devising strategies that benefit both social network site providers and children and young people in their daily engagement with these networks. Back in 1953, Howard Bowen (1953, p. 6) defined ‘the social responsibilities of the businessman’ as “the obligations of businessmen to pursue those policies, to make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of the objectives and values of our society”. More than half a century later, in 2011, the European Commission adopted “A renewed EU strategy 2011-14 for Corporate Social Responsibility”. In this strategy is it emphasised that human rights are an increasingly significant element in CSR and that companies should implement “a process to integrate social, environmental, ethical, human rights and consumer concerns into their business operations and core strategy in close collaboration with their stakeholders, with the aim of: maximising the creation of shared value for their owners/shareholders and for their other stakeholders and society at large; and identifying, preventing and mitigating their possible adverse impacts” (European Commission, 2011c, p. 6). More specifically, the 2013 UN “Children’s rights and business principles” require businesses not only to prevent harm but also to take steps to safeguard children’s interests, for instance by ensuring that products and services are safe and aiming to support children’s rights through them. For social network site providers this could for instance entail the (further) development of reporting mechanisms with a fast and supportive follow-up, the provision of clear and age-appropriate information in a transparent manner through innovatively designed Terms of Use and privacy policies (Wauters, Lievens and Valcke, 2014) or the implementation of participatory strategies to involve young users in the improvement and identification of elements that should be included in the CSR strategy. Against this background, this contribution will analyse (1) traditional incentives for businesses to adopt corporate social agendas (such as moral obligations, sustainability, license to operate, reputation, and shared value), (2) recent discourse concerning CSR at United Nations and European Union level and (3) current CSR practices in the ICT sector. This will result in a proposal for the identification of key requirements of CSR strategies for social network site providers that are tailored to their specific features and advance the rights of a significant proportion of their current and future users.

ispartof: IRIS: Legal Observations of the European Audiovisual Observatory issue:5 pages:1-1 status: published

Advertising has always been regulated to a certain extent, either through legislation or alternative regulatory instruments, such as self- and/or co-regulation. The protection of vulnerable viewers or media users, of which children and teenagers are a prime example, is one of the rationales which usually inspires such regulation. Traditionally, and certainly with regard to legislation, rules (may) differ according to the medium through which advertising is communicated. However, as advertising strategies increasingly include cross-media campaigns, the use of converged technologies and hybrid formats which blur the lines between commercial and editorial content, questions are raised as to the applicability of the current legislative framework. The same ad which is aimed at minors on television may be subject to other rules when it is distributed on an online platform such as YouTube. An advergame which goes viral through a social network may fall within the scope of different laws in various law domains, depending on its format and content. This paper will provide an overview of current existing legal obligations at the European Union level in three main fields: audiovisual media services, electronic commerce and consumer protection. The relevant provisions of the applicable regulatory instruments will be identified, and described. In a second part a critical assessment will be made of the applicability of these instruments to converging, digital advertising formats. Gaps as well as possible overlap will be exposed, in order to evaluate to what extent the policy goal of protecting children is realized today with regard to these formats.