ABSTRACT
Children constitute an estimated one-third of the world's population, and, significantly, one-third of the world's Internet users. To understand how children's rights in particular are being reconfigured in and through digital networks and services, researchers must address a series of problems and paradoxes. This chapter examines these in order to evaluate current research, policy and practice in relation to children's rights in the digital age. It focuses on the problem of ensuring rights online as well as offline, of prioritising among potentially clashing rights, of distinguishing opportunities from risks and of identifying 'the best interests of the child'. Online activities can be particularly ambiguous in terms of whether they turn out to be opportunities or risk. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) asserts that children's voices should be heard 'in all matters that concern them' and that this should be implemented 'according to the evolving capacity of the child' and 'in the best interests of the child'.
