This document summarizes the results of an assessment of reporting mechanisms on social networking services based on the EU's Social Networking Principles. It found that: - A majority (19) of services provided links to report inappropriate content or violations at all times, while 4 required some searching. - Reporting mechanisms were considered easy to understand for children on 15 services, but not on 8 services. - 14 of 22 services acknowledged reports from users. Testers sent messages as underage users asking for help with scary messages. 7 services responded in under 24 hours, while 13 did not respond during the testing period. The full evaluation and methodology are available online.

1. Results from the 1st assessment
of the Social Networking Principles for the EU
Principle 4:Principle 4:
“Easy to use mechanisms for reporting violations”
Elisabeth Staksrud,
Dept. of Media and Communication, University of Oslo
with Bojana Lobe, University of Ljubljana

2. • A majority of services (19) were found to have a link/information
available at all times on where to report content that bothers the
user and/or is a violation of terms.
• A majority of services (18) were found to have information
available all the time on where to report other users that bother
Summary of results: Reporting Mechanisms
available all the time on where to report other users that bother
them/conduct violations of terms, while on four services such
information is only found after considerable searching.
• The reporting mechanism on 15 of the services was considered
to be easy to understand for children and young people, while
eight were considered not to be.
• Of the services tested for having report mechanisms, 14 of 22
comply with the recommendation of acknowledging reports
from users.

3. • The social networking sites were sent the following message from the expert testers on their
service(s) if at all possible:
“I am writing to you because someone is sending me scary messages.
What should I do about this? Please help me.”
• This message was carefully designed and worded to be a general request
• Sent from the profile of a registered, underage user of the site
• The SNS is asked to give specific advice on how the user themselves should handle this. The
TESTING OF REPORT MECHANISM
• The SNS is asked to give specific advice on how the user themselves should handle this. The
message does not mention the SNS in particular. It is also a general cry for help.
• On a few services it was not possible to send a general request, asking for help, but rather
requests pre-defined by the SNS. (In these cases the tester was asked to send the pre-defined
report that resembled the original message the most.)
• It is deemed that an underage user asking for advice and help from a professional party should
receive some sort of feedback, preferably with information relevant to the request sent. The
way the message is worded should also prompt a personal response.
• Two services (Microsoft Xbox Live and Yahoo Flickr) could not be tested for technical as well as
ethnical reasons. Please refer to the individual testing reports of these services for more
information. In addition the testing of StudiVZ/MeinzVZ was tested and reported as one service.
• The QUALITY of the responses were not assessed.

4. “I am writing to you because someone is sending me scary
messages. What should I do about this? Please help me.”
Less than 24
hours; 7
Not tested; 2
1 - 7 days; 2
No reply
during test
period; 13
Response time to users asking the social networking
services for help

5. Full evaluation reports and methodology available online at
http://ec.europa.eu/saferinternet