First Lady Emine Erdoğan, who is accompanying President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in New York, attended an event held under her auspices in coordination with the Ministry of Family and Social Services, UNICEF and the office of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children at the United Nations Headquarters with the theme of “The Invisible Architecture: Building Safe Digital Systems for Children - Advancing International Standards and Shared Responsibility”.
Speaking at the event, First Lady Erdoğan drew attention to screen time in children and the destruction it causes on children, and said: “Our purpose here is obviously not to frame digital platforms as an all-out threat or to become technophobes. However, we should acknowledge that technology is a sensitive issue. We cannot be a mere onlooker to technology, which we have invented ourselves, inventing a new human type that will serve its purposes in front of our own eyes. That is so because digital platforms have not been just communication platforms for a long time. They are strong systems that direct societies as well as individuals, and that redesign every sphere of life. And unfortunately, children’s well-being comes after profit centricity and the goal of increasing interactions at all costs. Therefore, we should eliminate the pressure of these oppressive systems on children.”
Pointing to legal and technical measures taken by many countries regarding social media usage of children, First Lady Erdoğan noted: “Türkiye is a country that has implemented such measures at an early stage. However, it is a fact that countries bringing individual regulations against technology companies operating at global scale hinders standardization. Therefore, we should unite our common efforts. At this point we should develop joint global standards rather than different national practices, and we should create them under the roof of the United Nations. We should ensure the development of a common practice understanding among countries through regular monitoring and reporting mechanisms.”
