First Kosovo in region for internet use

Play online games about four hours by phone, during the game I have conversations with other players, but only about the games,” says Egzon while playing his favorite game on the phone.

I play games around five or six hours a day and all the time I have contacts with foreign people,” says Raymond while playing on an Internet cafe in a Pristina neighborhood.

Although Egzon and Raymond say they talk to strangers mainly about playing games, cyber security experts warn that young people who do such online activities are exposed to the possibility of recruiting and indoctrinating from extremists.

Experts and child protection organisations say that most of these games offer conversations among users and that children and teenagers can thus be the target of different groups of extremists.

The Danger of Immunity

Teuta Zymer, director of the Centre for Advanced Studies, says that the risk of anonymity is too great in these games, since children and teenagers have no knowledge of whom they are playing and communicating with.

<x) Here there is the use of hate speech, taking personal data with children and young people for different purposes - for pornographic and sexual purposes, even for the purposes of radicalism of children or youths. So anonymity inside the game is a risk facing young people and it has to be very careful with”, Zymer says.

Although most of these games have limited age, however, this restriction according to cyber security expert Mentor Hoxhaj is easy to manage by children and teenagers, as they find different ways of identification.

This then, according to him, leads to the next risk as the vast majority of online games have access to private communication among players from around the world, then continuing on to social networks or different apps, and this endangers the possibility of indoctrinating and recruiting children and teenagers.

We have two risks that children are exposed to, dangerous games, and child exposure to dangerous people who don't know them at all during online games or even in further social networking. This actually enables their indoctrination and their possible recruiting that could happen”, Hoxhaj says.

First Kosovo in region for internet use

The danger in Kosovo is much greater, according to Hoxhaj, as most games used by children and teenagers are free access, while paid ones, or as Premium, offer greater consumer security.

Kosovo is the country with the largest number of internet users from all countries in the region. According to EUROSTAT data, 81 per cent of Kosovo's population are internet users.

While in all countries the percentage is smaller. Meanwhile, a research that the Centre for Advanced Studies has done in Kosovo, 97 per cent of children in the group aged 9 to 15 are internet users.

Of these, 85 percent of children have said to play online video games, 90 percent of them watch cafes online, and 35 percent of children play aggressive games, including violent games in a different form or form.

According to official data from the Business Recording Agency in Kosovo, 284 businesses registered as internet cafes operate.

Meanwhile, Teuta Zymer says that parental control of children and young people using online games should be rigorous and permanent to all the devices children play.

Parents need to know who their children play with. So the dangers on the Internet should be discussed, the dangers of openly playing games with children. Another is to ensure that the games children play are suitable for their age group. Parents can limit the content of apps by age, making sure children don't always download apps or buy apps without parental approval. Also, the games must be in a common space if possible. We often tell parents that they should ask children what games they are playing. It's good to play with the kids together to make sure the game is right”, Zymer says.

Police have access to encrypted messages

The threat of propaganda extremists through different apps is a very complex issue, according to International Centre for Combating Terrorism at The Hague, Alastair Reed. In an interview for Radio Free Europe, he has stated that security organs in certain cases should have access to encrypted messages.

This is a very complex question. I think it's important that the police under certain circumstances have access to encrypted orders. I don't think they should have open and permanent access to any conversation. It's important to have the right legal arrangement that allows such conversations to be taken through these” applications, Reed said.

Electronic games are currently in constant trend, and they are consistently applied to younger ones. They also expose young people to the danger of various indoctrinations, with psychological consequences.

Clinical psychologist Wisar Sadiku, who deals mainly with child treatment, says of Radio Free Europe, that psychologically, electronic games have a drastic impact on the individual's functioning, raising stress levels, implementing aggressive behavior, and lowering the threshold of tolerance, which harms their psycho-Social functioning.